Mina Aino: Witch in training
by hersheyman
Summary: Third Year Mina Aino thinks herself a normal Hogwarts third year, until an encounter with a dementor causes her to have visions of a time long past.  Concludes in chapter 16.  Review
1. The Dementor

_Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fan made story. Harry Potter is owned by J.K. Rowling and Sailor Moon by Naoko Takeuchi. Please support the official releases./_

"The train's still stopped. Who knows when we're gonna get to school? Can you _please_ sing the song?"

"No."

"Come on, I want to hear it!"

"You'll hear it during dinner with the rest of the school Hannah."

"But why? You're here. I'm here. Just sing the song!"

"It's supposed to be a surprise."

"All right. Then you're not getting any of my chocolate frog cards."

The incessant whining of her friend hadn't been able to sway Mina Aino into revealing the song she would be singing with the student choir in the Great Hall that night. At last Hannah was switching to a far more effective tactic: threats.

"Well, I guess a few lines wouldn't hurt."

"Uh-uh. The whole song or no cards."

"Fine." After a disparaging shake of her head at a stubbornness even greater than her own, Mina began to sing.

_Double, double, toil and trouble,_

_Fire burn and cauldron bubble,_

_Double, double, toil and trouble,_

_Something wicked this way comes_

_Eye of newt and toe of frog, Wool of bat and tongue of dog, Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting, Lizard's leg and howlet's wing. Double, double, toil and trouble Fire burn and cauldron bubble Double, double, toil and trouble Fire burn and cauldron... Bubble_

_Something wicked this way… comes.._

Mina thought that the growing uneasiness with which Hannah was looking at her was do to the lyrics and the creepiness of the melody (purebloods like Hannah rarely heard of Shakespeare) but even as she was singing Mina felt the chill in the air. The lights in the train carriage dimmed and an unexplainable dread suddenly overcame Mina, as if the air itself was afraid. Her voice died at the words _something wicked this way comes_, as though song itself were drained from the room.

The door to the compartment opened and a dark figure entered the room. It wore a black cloak that concealed its face and billowed in every direction like rippling water. The only parts of its body that were visible were its hands-long, dark, rotted pieces of flesh. It floated above the ground so that it moved silently.

In fact the only sound it made was its breath. A continuous whine like a creepy nighttime wind. It was sucking in everything, the light, the warmth, the joy, the song, and leaving nothing but despair behind for Mina and Hannah.

The creature turned its head towards Mina, who was shivering and wondering if she would ever be warm again. The sound of wind grew louder as it strengthened its breath. Mina closed her eyes so as not to look into the dark space that concealed its face…

And found herself staring into another frightening face.

_The evil woman was full of anger and hatred, but it melted into surprise. She looked down at the great sword of glowing crystal thrust through her belly, and died silently upon that sword._

_The battle was over. Mina collapsed, exhausted, and looked around at the carnage of the battlefield, hoping to find her comrades still standing. The bodies were so prevalent that in no direction could she see the ground._

_But behind her was someone in a blue and white outfit lying on top of fallen foes and looking forward with unseeing eyes. Not far to her right the one in the green and white outfit was impaled on a great staff._

_Mina threw her head back, and with all her remaining strength she screamed._

"Mina!"

Mina opened her eyes. She had fallen off her seat onto the floor, Hannah and a man she did not know looking down at her with concern. And she was still screaming.

With the slow realization that she was back on the once again moving Hogwarts Express Mina's screams ceased and were replaced by heavy breathing. The man and Hannah helped her to her seat again. She was still freezing and the side of her head hurt and was possibly bruised, but she was beginning to cry for a completely different reason. She had a terrible sense of loss.

Only she had no idea what it was she had lost.

The man extended his hand, inside of which were several pieces of chocolate. "Eat this. Chocolate is the best treatment after an encounter with a dementor."

Mina looked at the chocolate skeptically. "A dementor?"

"One of the creatures that guard Azkaban prison."

Mina considered for a second. The man seemed to know what he was talking about, but she couldn't see why chocolate would help her. 'Still,' she reasoned, 'chocolate can't hurt.'

She took the chocolate and after a few bites felt warmth returning to her body. She took her first good look at the man who gave it to her. He looked like a frail person and his clothes could only be described as shabby.

"Thanks Mr.…"

"Lupin. Professor Lupin. You finish that now. I was on my way to talk to the conductor when your friend came out and told me you had fainted. If you're all right I'd best find him now."

Mina nodded and continued to eat the chocolate, feeling stronger with every bite.

Hannah sat down after Professor Lupin had left. "Are you sure you're all right?"

"I think I'll be shaking for a while."

"Same here. It got so cold. And I couldn't help but think of things I don't like to remember."

Mina seized that point, desperate for an explanation for what she had seen when she'd passed out. "Like what?"

"Oh, the time I crashed my broom into a tree when I was seven. Things like that."

"Oh." Mina said, disappointed. "Me too. Only you didn't faint." Nor, it seemed, did she have a vision of any sort, only a recollection.

"Professor Lupin said you weren't the only one."

"Did he say who else fainted?"

"No."

'Shoot.' Mina thought. 'If I'm going to find out what it is I saw I'm going to need to find whoever else fainted.'

"Mina?"

"Yes?"

"Don't start singing again."

They laughed./

Outside the train Mina said goodbye to Hannah and went towards where Professor Flitwick was gathering the choir members.

"Miss Aino," he said. "Professor McGonagall wants to see you in her office."

"But I just got off the train. What could I have done?" she asked defensively.

"I don't think you're in trouble. Just go."

"But what about the choir?"

"We'll get along fine without you."

Disappointed and a little insulted, Mina set off towards the office of Minerva McGonagall. She was quite surprised to see Harry Potter and Hermione Granger there.

"Oh, hi Harry. Hi Hermione." she said, unable to stop her cheeks from turning red. Being in Hufflepuff, she didn't see either of them very much even though they were all third years, but by killing Slytherin's monster at the end of the previous year Harry had saved all the Muggle-borns in the school, including Mina.

As soon as she arrived the door to Professor McGonagall's office opened. The head of Gryffindor House was there along with the school nurse, Madam Pomfrey, who was not pleased to see them.

"Potter. I suppose you've gotten yourself into something dangerous again."

"It was a dementor, Poppy." Professor McGonagall said.

"Yes. They both look pale and clammy." the nurse said as she observed Harry and Mina.

"Is there anything you can do for them?" McGonagall asked.

"The only thing I recommend is chocolate."

"I've already had." Harry said quickly. "Professor Lupin gave me on the train."

"Me too." Mina added.

"Did he? So we've finally gotten a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher who knows his remedies? Well then there's nothing left for me to do." She began to leave but stopped in the doorway. "Dementors!" she said loudly to McGonagall, "in a school! They won't be the last who faint Minerva. Mark my words."

"Well," McGonagall said. "Potter, Aino, you can head down to the feast. Miss Granger, I'd like you to stay."

And so it was that Mina found herself walking alone with Harry Potter. She tried to open her lips, but nothing came out. They had more in common than merely fainting on the train. Neither of them new that they could do magic until they heard of Hogwarts and both of them had lost at least one parent violently years earlier, in Mina's case her father. But she was still too self-conscious to speak with the Boy Who Lived.

Fortunately Harry was more than willing to start a conversation. "So you fainted too?" She nodded. "Any idea why it was only us two?"

"Um, no….um, did you…er..._see_ anything when the dementor…you know?"

"No. But I heard someone screaming."

"Maybe we were in some dementor trance thing and you heard me screaming."

"Maybe."

"So what do you think dementors are doing here when they should be by Azkaban?"

"Looking for Sirius Black."

Mina stopped. "The guy who killed thirteen people with one curse."

"Yes."

"You-Know-Who's right-hand man."

"Yes."

"The only person to ever break out of Azkaban.

"Yes."

"_Here_."

"Yes."

"The day keeps on getting better and better. Why here though? Is he after you or something?"

It was not a serious question, but Harry did not respond at all.

"He is, isn't he."

"Yes."

"You don't seem too worried."

"Well, it's not like Black can be any worse than Voldemort." Mina's eyebrows went up in surprise, but not fear, at the mention of the Dark Lord's name. As a muggle-born she had not been raised to fear the name. She'd just gotten into the habit of not saying it because nobody else did. Sirius Black was more frightening in her mind because he was a threat now, rather than the old threat of Voldemort.

"Oh." she said when they reached the Great Hall. "We missed the sorting. I really wanted to hear the hat's song."

"Well you heard it for the past two years. And we'll hear it again next year."

Mina looked at Harry in surprise. "Where were you last year? The hat makes a new song every year!"

"Really?" It was Harry's turn to look surprised.

She nodded. "And if we missed the sorting we missed the choir. I practiced so hard for that song, all for nothing."

"Well I didn't hear it."

Mina smiled. "The last time I sang it for someone a dementor attacked me. I'm going to just eat and sleep and forget about it."

They headed for their tables, Gryffindor and Hufflepuff, and sat down to eat. But despite her declaration of intention to forget, Mina stopped as she held a piece of meat to her mouth, still looking worried. She had a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach.

_Something Wicked This Way Comes_


	2. Classes

The first day of classes started badly for Mina. To begin with she had potions with Professor Snape, whose class she could never do well in, though she never seemed to have trouble making potions on her own (Mina had experimented with love potions and their antidotes during her free time the year before.)

Then there was care of magical creatures. As it was an elective it was the first class that she didn't take with her house but with the other students from her year that had elected to take it. She hadn't counted on Rubeus Hagrid being the teacher though. She knew Hagrid by his reputation for liking dangerous moonsters and was intimidated by his size.

Hagrid led the students to the edge of the forbidden forest and presented to them Buckbeack the Hippogriff. Had Hagrid had better communication skills she may have been fascinated by the part horse-part eagle, but his explanation of how to approach them had her and the rest of the class (though she heard muttering coming from three Slytherins the whole time) backing up when he asked for volunteers, leaving poor Harry to try to get Buckbeak to bow to him.

All of the worries of the class were put to rest when Buckbeak flew Harry around the castle grounds. The entire class took turns interacting with Buckbeak and Hagrid's other Hippogriffs. Mina was petting the beak of one named Chocobo and deciding that she very much liked Hippogriffs when she heard the scream.

She turned to see a Slytherin writhing on the ground while Hagrid was trying to control Buckbeak. The boy was screaming that he had been killed while the Hippogriff was quickly calmed down. It apparently was only upset with the Slytherin. Hagrid picked up the boy and rushed off to the hospital wing, ending the lesson and leaving the students to discuss what had just happened.

The Slytherins blamed Hagrid, but another group, led by Harry and his friends, blamed the boy, Malfoy. Apparently Malfoy had called Buckbeak a "great ugly brute" and the creature was insulted. Mina remembered that Malfoy was part of the group that had been muttering instead of listening to Hagrid explain that Hippogriffs were easily insulted, but she probably would have sided with Harry regardless.

Later she had divination with Professor Trelawney. They attempted to read tea leaves. Mina's leaves mostly seemed to formed curved shapes her partner thought were bananas. But Mina was pretty sure, though she didn't know why, that they were crescent moons. One shape that they both agreed on was a bird, though her partner thought it a pigeon and Mina an eagle. They called the braniac Hermione Granger over to resolve that dispute, but Hermione said that it looked like a falcon to her and they all dismissed the shape as meaningless. After all, what enemies could Mina have at age thirteen? It was equally funny when Hermione interrupted Professor Trelawney's observation that Harry's falcon meant that he had a deadly enemy to say that "everybody knows that," though when Trelawney made her prediction about the grim in Harry's cup the mood of the class grew well, grim.

The next day Mina had transfiguration, which was its usual difficult self, charms, which she quite enjoyed, and history of magic, the most boring class ever. Professor McGonagall told them that she knew of the prediction of Harry's death the previous day and told all in the class who had been there not to worry, that Professor Trelawney did that every year.

As she always did during history of magic, Mina wrote the topic of the day down so she could research it the weekend before the next test and proceeded to spend the rest of the class absentmindedly doodling. The first thing she noticed after starting was Hannah tapping her shoulder to tell her that class was over.

"Wow, Mina. Did you take drawing lessons over the summer?"

Mina looked at the paper she had been doodling on. "Did I do that?" She had no skill for drawing and usually just made stick figures. This time she had made a portrait, and a very good one at that. It was of a woman with long wavy hair that could have been any color but blonde given the dark ink Mina had been using. Her face was a mask of hate and she looked positively evil.

"That's creepy Mina."

"No kidding." That awful feeling in the pit of her stomach returned.

This was the same woman Mina had killed in her vision./

Other than the beginning of Quidditch practice the rest of Mina's first week was largely uneventful. Mina had made the Hufflepuff team the year before and had been one of only two good players on the team of seven. The other had been her fellow chaser Cedric Diggory, now in his sixth year. This year Cedric had been made the team captain and changed his position to seeker, as that position required a great flyer more than any other, though Mina would probably have been fine in that position as well. Diggory had set himself the task of rebuilding the team from scratch and Mina was confident that Hufflepuff would be a serious contender for the Quidditch Cup for the first time in many years.

The most major event of Mina's first week of classes, however, happened on Friday during her first defense against the dark arts class. Professor Lupin had acquired Boggarts for all of his third year classes after using one successfully during his first class with the Gryffindors. Boggarts lived in enclosed dark spaces like closets and assumed the form of whatever the nearest person feared most.

After asking certain basic questions and awarding a good number of house points to Hufflepuff Professor Lupin told the students to think of the thing they feared most and imagine something funny happening to it, as laughter was a boggart's greatest weakness. He then let them face the boggart.

The boggart first became a clown whose red nose exploded with a cry of "riddikulus!" giving Mina the idea of turning the gun a mugger once used to kill her father when she was small into a water gun.

There was a large dog that was chased by a small cat, a sixth year who was a known bully that got a large wedgie, a snake that tied itself into a knot, a giant rat that wore a Mickey Mouse hat, a vampire who wore sunglasses, a troll with a chalkboard full of advanced mathematical problems, and the Slytherin ghost, the Bloody Baron, wearing a silly multicolored sombrero.

Finally the boggart reached Mina, and she prepared to face her father's murderer. But it was not a punk with a gun that faced Mina, but a dark, cloaked figure with rotting hands that floated above the ground. There were a number of shouts and cries as the dementor advanced on Mina. The classroom grew cold and the sound of the scary wind began.

Mina dropped her wand and her vision blurred. She saw a young blonde girl with a hairstyle that made it look as though she were wearing meatballs on her head, saw the fear in her eyes, saw the blade poke out from behind the girl's chest, killing her instantly…

Saw Professor Lupin standing in front of her. The boggart had changed into a silver sphere. 'The moon?' Mina thought. Professor Lupin shouted "riddikulus!" and the sphere received a hole, deflating like a balloon. Professor Lupin yelled "ha!" and the boggart evaporated, defeated.

Mina looked at her hands, which had been holding her off the floor. So she hadn't fainted this time after all. Professor Lupin gave five points to everyone who fought the boggart, ordered the class dismissed, and asked Mina to remain behind.

After the class had left Professor Lupin took Mina to his office where he had more chocolate to help her recover. She ate eagerly, but as she regained her strength she became more embarrassed at not being able to handle the boggart like the rest of her class and her face reddened.

Professor Lupin noticed. "You have nothing to be ashamed about, Mina."

"Then why couldn't I fight off the boggart?"

"The boggart can replicate the effects dementors have on people, though it is not powerful enough to truly equal a dementor."

"Is that why I didn't faint this time?"

"Yes. Mina, I'm actually more impressed with you than with the rest of the class who fought the boggart. To fear the dementors is to fear fear itself, the sign of a wise person."

"I didn't expect it to be a dementor."

"So you are more mature than you realize. What did you expect the boggart to become?

"The man who killed my father."

Realization dawned on Professor Lupin's face. "Ah. So that is why the dementors have such an effect on you."

"Why?" Mina demanded.

"People with horrible events in their pasts are far more vulnerable to dementors. That is why Harry Potter is also affected by them. So you experienced your father's murder when you encountered the dementor and the boggart."

"No,sir I…" Mina stopped. She hadn't meant to tell that much to her teacher, but it was too late. "I don't know what I'm seeing."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm seeing things that never happened. Dead bodies everywhere. I saw one person who I've never seen in my life die today. This person's hairstyle, no one has a hairstyle like that. She doesn't _exist_…and yet I feel like I've lost the most important thing in my life."

Professor Lupin looked troubled. Whatever was happening to Mina was clearly not normal, even for a dementor attack. He decided that it required special attention.

"How about if I teach you to fight off dementors?"

Mina perked up. "That would be great! Can we do that next lesson?"

"No. The spell required is too advanced for a third year class. Many full-grown wizards cannot do it. It'll have to be just us in a one on one class on say, Mondays at seven?"

"Okay, but what makes this spell so hard?"

"First of all, it requires an intense amount of concentration on a single, happy thought-"

"And dementors make it almost impossible not to dwell on the worst things that happen to you. It's a lot like fighting a boggart. Happy thoughts. Funny Thoughts. Just harder."

"Exactly. Ten points to Hufflepuff for that observation. And it's an extremely powerful spell beyond needing a happy thought. Well, I'll see you at seven on Monday."

"I'll be there, professor." Mina got up to leave, but first asked "Professor Lupin, can I ask why you're afraid of the moon?"

Lupin looked startled, then laughed. "That's a personal matter, though I'm impressed that you noticed. Now run along before you miss all of lunch."/

That night Mina sat in front of the window, looking at the tiny sliver of the moon in the sky. The moment she saw the moon boggart she knew.

That was where her visions had taken place.


	3. The Patronus

Monday was a bad day for Mina. Potions was terrible as always, and Hagrid seemed to have lost his nerve after the incident with the Malfoy boy, who was still complaining about his arm and keeping it in a sling, and was only teaching the class about flobberworms, which managed to be both disgusting and boring at the same time. While Mina had only been to the hospital wing for flu medicines she had heard that if you weren't cured after a day in the hospital wing then your brains were messed up. Naturally her dislike for Malfoy was continuing to grow.

After class she approached Hagrid and asked him about the hippogriffs and Buckbeak in particular. Hagrid was very upset about the matter, but took her to his cabin, outside of which was Buckbeak, chained by the neck and separated from the rest of the hippogriffs by ministry decree. The proud beast's sadness struck Mina hard, as if she could sense its misery. Though he had been ordered to keep Buckbeak away from students, Hagrid was touched enough by her concern to let Mina bow to and approach it.

Buckbeak gave an affectionate hoot as Mina petted him. She smiled and asked Hagrid "The ministry isn't gonna keep him chained up here forever, is it?"

Hagrid looked away. "Lucius Malfoy's trying to get 'em to execute Buckbeak."

"They can't do that!"

"Yeh don' know Lucius Malfoy. He gets what he wants. He even got Dumbledore to stop bein' headmaster fer a bit last year. This is jus' small potatoes to him." Hagrid took a large handkerchief out of his pocket and blew his nose. The resulting sound was so loud that both Mina and Buckbeak cringed.

"I'm sorry, professor."

"There's not really anything yeh can do, but thanks fer caring. It really means a lot teh me." He motioned for her to go back to the castle. "Yeh'd best be headin' teh yer next class. I don' want teh make yeh late."/

Mina had to wait until seven at night for the thing she had been looking forward to all day, the anti-dementor lesson with Professor Lupin, who had acquired another boggart in a crate.

"The spell that counters the dementors is called the Patronus charm. It involves the creation of a figure of positive energy, fueled by the emotions and power of the caster. The true patronus can drive away and even combat dementors, though less complete ones can still be effective against a single dementor. The patronus is also the only spell known to effect the lethifold, though the odds of your ever encountering a lethifold are nonexistent outside of the tropics and even there are very slim.

"The key is to focus on a single happy thought or memory, and when the image is strongest in your mind to say the words 'expecto patronum.'"

"And what does a patronus look like, professor?"

"The patronus is always a glowing silver, but the form of the true patronus is unique to each caster. You will not know what shape your patronus will take until you cast it.

"Now think of the happiest thing you possibly can and cast the spell."

Mina focused on her memories of playing volleyball in her muggle school and yelled "expecto patronum!" A burst of silver smoke escaped her wand and floated before her. It was largely transparent, but stable.

"How was that?" The moment she asked the patronus dissolved into nothingness.

"Good for a first attempt. You'll need to concentrate harder for the patronus to stay with you though. Try not talking after casting it."

"Got it."

"Then lets see how well it will hold up against a dementor." He backed away so as to not affect the boggart's form and pointed his wand at the crate. "Ready?"

Mina concentrated on the volleyball memory again. "Yes."

"Alohamora."

Mina began to cast her spell the instant the crate began to open. By the time the dementor had fully formed she had her smoke patronus ready to shield her.

The dementor stayed still for a few seconds, then glided towards Mina. It passed through the patronus like it was nothing but steam. Mina tried to think of volleyball again, but flashes of a battle kept popping into her mind, disjointed from Mina's fighting them. She stumbled backwards, nearly falling down.

But then professor Lupin was in front of her, and the dementor changed into the moon. With a wave of his wand he made it pop in the direction facing him, sending it back into the crate which closed over it.

Mina felt dejected. "It just walked through the patronus like it wasn't there."

"Don't worry about it. I would have been astounded if you succeeded on the first try. This isn't the same thing as levitating a cup of tea, or a chocolate bar." He handed her another piece of chocolate. "Eat up before we start again."

Once he was sure that she had eaten enough to regain her strength he observed "You stayed on your feet then entire time this time."

"I don't think I could have kept it up much longer."

"It is still an improvement. Did you have another vision like the others?"

"Just flashes, sir. Nothing I can really remember."

"You see? We're already making progress! What do you say we try it again? This time, though, try a different memory. The one you chose may not have been happy enough."

"Ok." She thought again, and picked the first time she rode a broomstick.

The result was the same; the dementor passed through the patronus again without any difficulty, though Professor Lupin said that the second patronus was somewhat thicker than the first and harder to see through.

The third time Mina did not improve at all.

"I think that that's it for today."

"But-"

"No buts, Mina. There's only so much of this a person can handle. We'll meet again the same time next week, but I'm not going to be responsible for you ending up in the hospital wing."/

The next day Mina absentmindedly doodled her way through history of magic again, and again drew a picture of someone she had seen in a dementor vision-the girl with the meatball head.


	4. The Room of Requirement

The following weeks fell into a pattern for Mina. Quidditch practices were going well. She was failing potions. Hagrid continued to teach about flobberworms even though he had covered the entire subject in less than a lesson and Mina still visited Buckbeak at least once a week. Professor Trelawney continued to predict Harry Potter's death every other class. She doodled several more pictures of figures from her visions in history of magic, including one of the woman in the green and white outfit, one of an imposing man with long white hair, and another one of the evil woman. A few times Mina had nightmares in which the woman was laughing at her. After each she'd look at the pictures, as if they would give her answers.

It didn't go unnoticed that Mina had become less cheerful and obsessed with something, but there was no one, not Hannah, not any of the teachers, that she could talk to about her visions and dreams. Mina felt truly alone for the first time in her life.

Throughout September and much of October the patronus sessions did not seem to be progressing. Mina still could not make a patronus that could slow a boggart-dementor down, let alone the real thing. She had run the gamut of happy memories from birthday parties to amusement parks with no success.

She wondered if she was too nervous around Professor Lupin to concentrate on the happy memories. The last week in September Lupin had been too ill to teach and Professor Snape substituted for him. Snape insulted their proficiency, blamed Lupin, and made the class skip ahead to learning about werewolves. Having already known that Professor Lupin was afraid of the moon the realization clicked in Mina's head very quickly. It was confirmed when she checked to see that Lupin had indeed been ill the day of the full moon.

So here she was, taking extra lessons alone with a werewolf. Still, she reasoned, as long as they didn't coincide with the full moon she wasn't in any danger.

One session, after another failed attempt, Professor Lupin suggested "I think we should expand the selection of memories you are choosing from. You are picking things that made you happy at the time, but may not be strong enough to stick with you. Instead of thinking of something happy, think of something _powerful_. It may work better."

Mina thought for a minute. The moment in her life that she felt the most powerful was…the first time she held her wand at Ollivander's! It had been a sense of strength, of magic, that she could do anything.

"I've got it."

Professor Lupin opened the crate, releasing the boggart. The dementor advanced on Mina, who focused all she could, given the flashing images in her head, on the day she first held the very stick now in her hand.

"Expecto Patronum!"

The silver smoke once again erupted from her wand, but this time it was thicker, nearly opaque, and brighter, causing Mina to squint at the light. The dementor stopped, unable to walk through it. The flashing images grew fainter, virtually ceasing. With her mind more clear Mina forced the patronus forward, thereby forcing the dementor back until it was in its crate again.

"Fantastic, Mina!"

Mina rubbed her eyes as the patronus dissolved. "That was really draining."

"Yes, but you'll get used to it if you practice more. I hope you realize what a remarkable feat for a third year you've just accomplished."/

Between the dementor lessons and her newfound fear of the nameless woman Mina had all but forgotten about Sirius Black. That is, until the first Hogsmeade weekend, which coincided with Halloween.

The village was clearly not seeing its best days. The streets were filled with litter from the sweet shops, some stores were closed down, and the only people about seemed to be Hogwarts students. It was a far cry from the beautiful, bustling town Mina had heard so much about.

The reason was obvious on every store window and lamp post. There were two signs put up all over the village. One was a picture of Sirius Black with the large words "HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MAN?" The other was a reminder that the dementors would be making random searches through Hogsmeade every night.

Mina remembered that Black was supposedly targeting Harry Potter at Hogwarts. It became obvious that the ministry expected Black to come via Hogsmeade.

But Black or no Black, Mina and Hannah had been looking forward to this day for a long time and weren't going to let anything stop them from enjoying it. They had their first ever butterbeers at the Three Broomsticks, tried many new sweets at Honeydukes, and bought a few mischievous items at Zonko's joke shop.

But by 1:00 PM Mina had to head back to the castle. Cedric Diggory had insisted on training that day in the afternoon. So she raced back to the castle, changed into her Quidditch robes, got her broom, a comet model capable of reaching speeds of more than sixty miles an hour, and ran down to the Quidditch field. She was the fifth of the seven person team to arrive.

Diggory was berating one of their new players, a second year, for not bringing his broom. The kid had apparently spent too long flying on the Quidditch field the other day and had to leave his broom in a storage space on the seventh floor that he couldn't find again on his way to class.

Diggory insisted that there was nothing in the school that matched his description and was certain that he had lost the broom, but Mina thought that she recognized the place.

Early in her second year Mina had been walking back from class on the seventh floor when she was grabbed by the Weasely twins. They had upset the caretaker, Argus Filch, by dropping a dung bomb on a staircase and Filch was going on a rampage, by punishing every student he saw. The twins were looking for a way to hide from Filch and decided to help other students escape his wrath. They pulled Mina and another student into a giant storage facility, so large that one could not see the other end, and yet filled with items left behind by students over a thousand years. There they waited until the danger from Filch had passed.

Only when she had left the room did Mina realize that it was in the exact same spot as a bathroom with chamber pots she had used in an emergency. She returned later to check a few times, and sure enough, when she had a somewhat full bladder she found the bathroom back where it had been before. She had told Hannah about the room that became whatever one needed, but Hannah hadn't believed her.

So now Mina was taking the second year there to find his broom. The way up took a long time, but once they were in the room of requirement and found the broom a passage opened up for them that led straight out of the castle, where the entire rest of the team was waiting to hear what Diggory had to say.

"Listen, our first game has been moved up. We'll be playing Gryffindor next week."

"What!" came a protest from several members. "We're not ready! How can they do that!"

"The Slytherin seeker is injured and asked for a postponement. We've been chosen to replace them."

"That's absurd!"

"Yes it is. As you said, we're not ready yet. That's why no one is going to come to practice without their brooms anymore. And that's why we're going to have practice _every night _for the next week."

'Oh great.' Mina thought. 'There go the lessons with Professor Lupin.'/

The school had its Halloween feast that night, and the students returned to their dormitories full and contented. Most of the Hufflepuffs had already changed into their pajamas when Professor Sprout, the head of Hufflepuff house, ran into their dorm room.

"Up! Up! Everybody up! We're going to the great hall!"

"What's going on professor?" the student nearest her asked.

"Sirius Black has been sighted in the school. For your own safety all students are to sleep in the great hall tonight. Leave your things here. There will be sleeping bags for you in the great hall."

The shock ran through the dormitory. "Black?" "Here?" "Holy %$!"

"Prefects," Professor Sprout called, "I'm counting on you to make sure that there are no stragglers. Tonight that would be a risk we cannot take."

As they walked towards the great hall Mina worked her way to the front of the group. "Professor," she asked, very worried, "Black didn't hurt anyone, did he?"

"Unless you count the fat lady being very distressed, no."

Mina gulped. Harry was all right, but Black had tried to get into the Gryffindor dorm. He really _was_ looking for Harry.

In the great hall there was much discussion of how black got into the castle. Someone said that he apparated, but it was pointed out that apparation is impossible at Hogwarts. Another student suggested that he could fly, but the problem with that was how he got past the dementors. It wasn't a large hole in the theory, as black had gotten past the dementos already in Azkaban.

Mina tried to sleep, but her already worried mind wouldn't let her. She dreamed that the evil woman was laughing at her and awoke with a start.

Percy Weasely, the head boy, came over to her when her head shot up. "Why aren't you asleep?" he demanded.

"I has a nightmare."

Percy nodded. "Understandable."

There was a hum of people still talking and whispering to themselves. Percy went over to the nearest offenders to tell them off, but turned away when the door creaked open. Professor Dumbledore had entered the great hall. Mina listened intently to what he said to Percy, but the truly interesting part only came when Snape arrived to give his report that Black had not been found in the castle.

"Very well," Dumbledore said. "I did not expect Black to linger."

"Have you any idea how he got into the castle?"

"A hundred, each as unlikely as the next."

"Might I remind you of the conversation we had at the start of term? It seems to me impossible that Black was able to enter the castle without inside help. If you recall, I was particularly concerned when you hired-"

"I do not believe anyone in this castle would help Black enter it." Dumbledore cut him off sharply. "If you'll excuse me, I must meet with the dementors. I promised them that I would inform them when our search is concluded."

"Didn't they want to be part of the search, sir?" Percy asked.

"Yes. They were _quite _eager. But no dementor will step foot in this castle as long as I am headmaster."

The professors walked off, leaving Percy to roam the hall looking for talking students and Mina to wonder.

Who could have helped Black get into Hogwarts?


	5. Venus

The school was abuzz with theories about Sirius Black over the next several days. Oddly enough, no one seemed to wonder why he had come to Hogwarts and were more concerned with how he got in. During care for magical creatures Mina asked Harry if he was all right; he assured her he was and that he was still not very worried about Black. He and Mina were both more concerned about Hagrid, who was growing more and more depressed about Buckbeak's situation every day, and doing nothing but bringing out flobberworms for his lessons. They, Ron Weasely, and Hermione Granger stayed behind to try to cheer him up, but to no avail.

As Wednesday passed the topic of conversation turned to the upcoming first Quidditch match of the year. It was considered scandalous that Gryffindor and Hufflepuff would not be starting out by playing their rivals in Slytherin and Ravenclaw, respectably. As word spread that it was because of Draco Malfoy's injury that Slytherin would not be playing the Slytherin Seeker found that the whole of three houses blamed him. The consensus was that it was all a ploy to avoid playing in the current weather conditions.

It had been rainy and windy for nearly the entire week before, but on the game of the game itself there was a full-fledged thunderstorm, complete with lightning, gale force winds, and a torrential downpour. In an effort to keep his players dry, Diggory had made it a practice for the team to cast the impervious charm on their Quidditch robes before every practice. It had made their clothes water-repellent during practice, but was less effective in the middle of a gale.

When the four balls were released the Gryffindor chaser, Katie Bell, was the first to grab the quaffle and zoomed off towards the Hufflepuff goalposts. Mina raced after her, but her broom couldn't accelerate to full speed against the wind. This was only Mina's second Quidditch game, as the season had been canceled early the year before, and she had never played in weather comparable to this. Though she was the first Hufflepuff chaser to reach their end of the field she was too far behind Katie to have any chance of stopping Gryffindor from scoring.

As she was the closest chaser the Hufflepuff beater threw the quaffle to her. Mina turned her broom around and took off towards the Gryffindor goalposts. The wind in this direction pushed her broom, causing her to fly faster than she ever had before. She had to make a sudden stop in order to not overshoot the Gryffindor goalposts. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Angelina Johnson, another Gryffindor chaser, rushing her from the side. In an instant, without thinking, Mina tossed the quaffle a little bit into the air in front of her and smashed it with her hand the way she used to hit a volleyball. With the aim and strength that had been the bane of many an opponent of hers in volleyball Mina tied the game at 10-10.

Wood threw the ball to Johnson, who flew again towards the Hufflepuff goals. This time Mina was able to start off at the same time as Johnson and stay neck and neck with her the entire distance of the field. Johnson attempted to pass to Bell, but it was intercepted by another Hufflepuff chaser who used the wind to his advantage. He and the third Hufflepuff chaser passed the ball back and forth between them to keep it away from Bell until one of them could shoot, and be intercepted by Wood, the Gryffindor keeper.

Bell again took the quaffle down the field. This time Mina was back on her end. She flew into Bells's way to block her from getting a good shot off. It worked, as Bell was forced to dive and throw the ball up at the goalposts, an easy save for the Hufflepuff Keeper.

He threw the ball to Mina, who thought that she had figured out how to use the wind. She laid herself down on her broom with the quaffle under her stomach and shot off towards the Gryffindor goals. Her speed rivaled or possibly exceeded that of the Nimbus under normal conditions. She came at Wood so fast that he had no chance of saving the goal, putting Hufflepuff ahead for the first time.

It was a lead Hufflepuff would not relinquish. The second year chaser scored on an alley-oop pass from Mina. Mina herself scored a third goal, though her fourth attempt was stopped by a near collision with Harry Potter on his Nimbus 2000. Gryffindor then managed to score its second goal of the game.

As Mina slowed down to try to shoot her fourth goal again she heard a voice behind her yell "watch out!" She turned her broom just as a bludger bared down on her, courtesy of one of the Weasely twins, its speed increased by the direction of the wind. The wind carried her broom, causing it to continued to turn, so that her foot was in the perfect position to reflexively lash out at the bludger. She kicked the infamous ball so hard that it zoomed pass Johnson and began to chase the poor Hufflepuff second year. The other players, and the fans who could see through the rain, just stared with their mouths open. Had it been a clear day the field would have been silent.

No one there had ever seen anything like _that _before.

Mina didn't notice that anything was strange until Wood seemed to not be paying attention when he tried to stop her from scoring. He then didn't go after the ball, allowing Mina to score yet again. A flash of lightning seemed to bring him back to his senses, and he called for a timeout.

Mina and the rest of the Hufflepuff team met quickly under a large awning. Without the immediate thrill of the game to distract her Mina became aware of how cold she was and how much she was shivering. Diggory and the rest just stared at her for nearly five seconds. "What was that?"

"What was what?"

"Never mind. We're playing great, but the pressures going to be on me now. Woods' going to be having Potter redouble his efforts to end this quickly. I could tell that he can't see a thing through the rain on his glasses. How he hasn't hit anything is beyond me. I'd hate to face him in good weather. But if they use this time to fix his glasses we've got trouble. Chasers, keep on playing like you're doing. Beaters, target Potter. We've got to keep him occupied. I'm going to be concentrating on nothing but the snitch."

The game started again. Gryffindor and Hufflepuff each scored once, then Mina scored her sixth goal of the game. Wood started pointing and yelling at Harry, and all the players turned to see Diggory chasing the snitch with Harry hot on his heels. The chasers and keepers stopped, as their jobs were no longer important.

But something was wrong. The crowd should not have been so silent at the climatic moment of the game. Mina turned a little, and her heart sank from what she saw.

Dementors.

_Hundreds_ of them, baring down on the Quidditch pitch.

The silence was broken by a single person shouting and the entire field erupted in panic. The dementors crossed into the field of play, and the cold Mina felt became so all encompassing that she literally froze in her spot. Images began to flash before her eyes. One dementor came towards her, and she had the sense to take out and think of the power of her wand and cast the patronus charm at it. The silver smoke stopped the dementor in its tracks, but it was only one dementor out of many, and the images in her mind became overwhelming. The patronus flickered out of existence, and Mina found herself somewhere else./

She swung the great sword back and forth, killing all that stood before her. A brief moment was all it took to prepare her one handed attack. The energy exploded against the ground, destroying everything in its radius, which happened to be in front of her, and giving her an opportunity to survey the battle.

To her left she could make out one of her comrades, the one in red and white. The fire soldier was fighting her way towards a tall man with long brown hair. She knew that her sister-in-arms did not stand a chance against the general.

She dropped the sword and put her hands together to unleash her greatest attack. The energy expanded as it blasted closer to the general, clearing a path to him.

She grabbed the sword before it even hit the ground and was off as fast as she could run towards the general.

She was a half second too late.

Her comrade was cut down just before she reached the general, just before her blade pierced his side and killed him. She knelt down, the battle be damned, and took her fallen ally's head in her arms.

"Mars…"

The soldier looked at her not with fear of death, but with sadness. "I'm sorry, Venus….I failed."

Her eyes rolled over, dead./

"No!"

Mina awoke screaming. Madam Pomfrey came over with a box of chocolate to calm her down. Once Mina, realized that she was lying on a bed in the hospital wing, and surrounded by her friends and the Hufflepuff Quidditch team she was able to accept the chocolate. Harry Potter was lying a few beds away; he and his friends were staring at her.

"What happened?" Mina asked.

"You and Potter fell off your brooms." Diggory said.

"But Dumbledore did something, made you both fall slower." Hannah said. "Then he shot something silver at the dementors to make them go away. He was scary."

"We got your broom." Diggory said. "It crashed into the lake, but Professor Flitwick summoned it out. It'll be all right once it dries off."

"What happened to the game? Was it rescheduled?"

"I got the snitch right after you two fell. We won 230 to 30. I wanted a rematch, but Wood wouldn't hear of it. He thinks he lost fair and square and doesn't want favors."

By the time all the well-wishers had left Mina had found out that Harry had woken up two hours before her, that his broom had been destroyed by the whomping willow, and that there were some who were already trying to have the move where she had kicked the bludger officially named 'The Aino.'

After they left Harry asked her "what was that thing you shot at the dementors?"

"It's called a patronus. It's an anti-dementor spell, but I don't do it very well."

"How do you do it?"

"It's a really difficult spell. Professor Lupin has been trying to teach me to do it-"

"What?" Harry yelled. "He's been teaching you to fight dementors? Can he teach me too?"

"I guess. Maybe you'll do better than me."

Mina stared at the ceiling. Under other circumstances, she would have made a comment about spending the night alone with Harry Potter that would have led to the boy feeling awkward. But that night she was far to troubled to joke.

"What did you see this time?" she asked.

"I didn't see anything. But I heard him, Voldemort, murdering my mum. What did you see?"

Mina hesitated for a few seconds. "I saw my dad getting killed."

"I'm sorry. I didn't know."

"I just wish those dementors would go away. They didn't stop Black from getting into the castle and all they do is make us relive these things."

"Yeah. I hate dementors too. They could have killed us today. Done Black's job for him."

Mina giggled.

"What?"

"Sorry. Guess I really needed a laugh, even though it's not that funny. But it is really ironic."

There was silence for a minute.

"Harry?"

"Yes?"

"D'you think that they don't have a lot of control over the dementors?" She was very worried about this point.

"I don't know. I hope not."

"Me too."/

The next morning, when Mina was released from the hospital wing with Harry, they exchanged compliments on each other's Quidditch skills and went on their way. Mina did not go to the great hall like Harry did for breakfast. She hadn't felt hungry even for the chocolate Madam Pomfrey insisted on giving them that morning. Instead she walked to the seventh floor, to the room of requirement.

Inside this time was a single mirror against one of the walls. Mina stared at it long and hard.

"Venus." she whispered.

Nothing happened.

"**Venus!"** she shouted.

An aura of orange light enveloped her, blocking her vision. When it dissipated, it was an entirely new person looking back at Mina from her reflection.

She now wore a skintight white and red shirt with a blue collar and a pink bow on the chest, a blue mini-skirt, blue heeled shoes, white gloves, a pink bow in the back of her hair, a mask over her eyes, and had a glowing crescent moon on her forehead.

The aura must have not dissipated completely, for through her mask Mina no longer looked like she was of Asian descent.

The most striking change however, was in how she felt. She could sense the power that now coursed through her body, far greater than the power she had felt when she first held her wand. And yet she knew somehow that even this power was a fraction of what she had the potential to become.

And, god help her, everything she had seen in her visions and dreams, everything she had doodled, was true.

She wept, not the tears of a child stubbing her toe or throwing a temper tantrum, but the silent tears of one whose childhood had been cut short all too soon./

_Hannah can be taken to be Hannah Abbot, or not. The purpose of her is really just to have someone for Mina to drift away from. As a result I admit that she's not as well developed as I would have liked, but I found it hard to give her her own voice independent of Minako's. She's a friend who likes the same things and goes to the same places. In reviews that's what I think I need the most help with, finding a voice for her. But other criticisms are welcome. Just be civil and remember that I have feelings._

_As of now I plan to go at least through book five._


	6. Mudblood

Things did not return to normal when classes resumed. Mina's grades, never great, were slipping. She had begun to skip divination and history of magic entirely. Her work in potions was so bad that Snape gave her detention to get her to step up, and her work in transfiguration had fallen to her previous standards in potions. The only class she was doing well in was care for magical creatures, as the best way to care for flobberworms was to ignore them.

She had stopped visiting Hagrid, who noticed how much her mood had darkened. He called her over one day to ask her what was wrong.

"Nothing."

"Don' give me tha.' Ye've stopped comin' te visit Buckbeak. He misses yeh, by th' way. Perks up about the time yeh used te come and then gets disappointed and mopey when yeh don' show. An' yeh don' smile in class no more."

"I don't smile anymore because all we do is stare at those stinking flobberworms all day!" she shouted. Hagrid shook his head and walked away, leaving Mina feeling guilty on top of everything else.

Mina reacted the same way when other people tried to help her. Hannah's persistence in questioning Mina about what was bothering her eventually led to her yelling at Hannah for five whole minutes things such as "I'm fine!," "Nothing is bothering me!" and "It's none of your business anyway!" Afterwards the two stopped speaking to each other.

Mina's anti-dementor classes had ended. Professor Lupin said that he no longer had the time, as he had fallen ill ('or rather turned into a werewolf' Mina thought with a twinge of anger) twice already during the semester, though the second time he did not miss his class with the Hufflepuff third years. He had agreed to teach Harry Potter the patronus spell, but again only after the beginning of the next term. As Harry was by now well behind Mina in learning to fight dementors she would not resume her lessons when Harry started. "Besides," Professor Lupin had said, "you need the extra time to get your grades up."

Harry himself had taken had taken to talking to her often after care for magical creatures. He wanted to know more about the patronus charm and Mina was also the only one in the school he could talk to about his experiences with the dementors as she was the only other person who fainted because of them.

Just a few weeks earlier Mina would have been delighted to talk to Harry Potter so often, but now it just annoyed her. Despite also fainting and remembering horrible things in his past, Mina couldn't tell him or anyone else of her problems.

No one else had apparently killed many people in some sort of past life. No one else had this incredible power and no idea what to do with it or how to use it. She knew that Harry, like herself, continued to have nightmares as a result of his encounters with the dementors, but they were mostly of the dementors themselves, not of events which he knew nothing about.

In addition to her troubles in class, Mina was also having trouble on the Quidditch pitch. The match between Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw would take place at the end of November, less than a month after the game that the dementors interrupted, and Diggory was scheduling many practices in preparation.

But Mina found it as hard to concentrate on the quaffle as she did on Professor Binn's voice. She dropped passes, missed easy shots, and one time even flew right into the Hufflepuff keeper.

After that last incident Diggory gave her a mouthful.

"What the hell are you doing out there? We need our people flying at their best, not into walls! You may be the best flyer on the team, but you're not going to stay on the team at this rate!"

And on top of everything else Mina now had to endure the personification of rudeness that was Draco Malfoy. Immediately after the disastrous Quidditch match of early November he had taken the bandages off of his "newly healed" arm and proceeded to celebrate by doing imitations of a dementor for the Slytherins. He had enough of a following in his own house that it did not matter to him that he had earned the enmity of the other three houses in recent weeks.

He only teased Mina about her fainting because of the dementors when he saw her, as opposed to his going out of his way to drive the point with Harry Potter. That is, until he learned of Mina's ancestry. So it was that Mina found him and his cronies, the large and stupid Crabbe and Goyle, waiting for her outside the Hufflepuff common room.

"Oh look," Malfoy said with a smirk, "it's the other one who can't stay on a broomstick. But I should have known that _Mudbloods _are too pathetic to deal with dementors or brooms.

Like a sudden burst of thunder Mina was on Malfoy, pushing him into the wall behind him and raising her wand to his face. The other Hufflepuffs nearby who had been about to shout at Malfoy were cowed by her anger, as were Crabbe and Goyle, who did nothing to help Malfoy.

"Call me that again." she hissed. "Go on! Call me that again!" Her wand was only inches from Malfoy's face, and all he did was whimper. "Next time," she threatened in his ear, "I'll use you as a bludger. And you'll _really _stay in bandages."

"What's going on here?" came the voice of Professor Snape. Mina released Malfoy as the Hufflepuffs tried to explain to Snape what had happened, but he said that all he had seen was Mina threatening Malfoy with a wand. So Mina got another detention and Malfoy got off scott-free.

Crabbe and Goyle laughed as they followed Snape away, but Mina could see that Malfoy was hunched over and still quite terrified. For the first time in a long while she smirked.

After her next Quidditch match Malfoy would have nothing to make fun of her about again./

The match against Ravenclaw was a tough one. True, they did not have the raw skill of the Gryffindor team, but this time Hufflepuff was without the advantage the wind had given them in the previous match. It was Mina, with a renewed determination, who kept Hufflepuff in the lead. It was thirty minutes in and she had scored every time she shot. But the other Hufflepuff chasers were not up to the task of facing an opponent without an advantage, and so the score remained close.

At that point the Ravenclaw beaters began to change their strategy. They had been focusing mostly on hitting the bludgers toward Diggory as beaters are wont to, for the seeker ends the game and scores a hundred and fifty points in an instant. Now they targeted Mina with the bludgers, for Diggory seemed no closer to catching the snitch than he had at the beginning of the match, and the beaters perceived that by subduing Mina Ravenclaw would be able to take a substantial lead, possibly enough to win without the snitch.

At first the strategy seemed to work, for Mina's shots became few and far between as she had to constantly dodge two bludgers and in another twenty minutes Ravenclaw was up by fifty points.

But the Hufflepuff beaters still focused primarily on the Ravenclaw seeker, Cho Chang. And, though they were not as effective as the Ravenclaw beaters, and as good a flier as Chang was, she was under pressure from the bludgers while Diggory was largely free to scan the field for the snitch.

They were lucky that it took him as long as it did to find and catch the snitch, for the final score was close enough for Ravenclaw to stay in the running for the Quidditch cup, though Gryffindor, which had needed Hufflepuff to lose horribly, was all but out. It was rotten luck for them, as on paper they were the best team Hogwarts had seen in more than twenty years.

But the bad turn of events for the Gryffindor team were of little concern for the Hufflepuffs, who with two wins were now the favorites to win the cup for the first time in recent memory. It was the first time since she had transformed in the room of requirement that Mina laughed.

But she continued to have nightmares about the evil woman, and her good mood turned sour again quickly, even if Malfoy left her alone from then on. And it was possibly due to what had happened to the Gryffindor Quidditch team, but Harry Potter stopped speaking to her about the dementors after the next Hogsmeade weekend and his mood became as bad as Mina's. Though their conversations had annoyed her she was still bothered by the fact that Harry had stopped talking to her.

Never had Mina been more glad to leave Hogwarts for the Christmas holidays than that semester, but she could not have imagined that it was in the muggle world that she would find the answers she had spent months looking for in the magical one.


	7. The Silver Millennium

Mina lived with her mother in a two bedroom apartment in London, the best they could afford with only one salary. Like all parents who haven't seen their children for months, Mrs. Aino had a never-ending amount of questions for her daughter about her time in school, a curiosity made even more acute by the fact that Mina was in a strange new world that was literally magical. The Mina thought that she had disguised her frustration as typical annoyance with the parental bombardment of questions well enough.

It was a big help for Mina to have more time to herself. She'd taken to venting through playing a great amount of Wii Sports Boxing, a few hours of which left her arms very sore.

She was also able to take out the pictures she had drawn over the term and look he'at them at her leisure. She'd even labeled them. The girl in red and white Mina knew was called "Mars." She guessed that the one in blue and white was "Mercury," and that the one in green and white was "Earth." She'd labeled the picture of the evil woman "wicked witch of the west" and the pictures of the two men in grey uniforms "white haired guy" and "black haired guy." The girl in the dress she labeled "meatball head."

Mina was now able to organize them into what she thought were the good guys and the bad guys. The younger women were the good guys and the men and the evil woman were the bad guys.

That would have been as far as she'd have gotten, however, had she been alone with her mother the entire Christmas break. But the day after Christmas Mina received a strange visitor, one that would change her life forever.

Mina had been coming from a long, hot bath-bathtubs were a luxury the students at Hogwarts did not have, so Mina was going to enjoy the one at home al much as possible-when she found a white cat in her room. The cat, rather unusually for an animal, was staring at her drawings very intently.

Mina remembered how Professor McGonagall, when explaining how people transformed themselves into animals by becoming animagi, turned herself into a cat and cat again in front of the class. She self consciously held her towel tighter to make sure it stayed on and said "hey."

The cat turned to her and her eyes widened when she saw a golden bald spot on its forehead, in the shape of a crescent moon. Even more surprising was when it talked.

"How do you know about the others?" it asked in a male voice.

"How-how can you _talk?_" Not even animagi were capable of speech in their animal forms.

The cat laughed. "I'm sorry. How rude of me not to introduce myself first. My name is Artemis, and I'm-"

"Artemis? So you're a girl cat?"

"No." Artemis said, annoyed.

"Well Artemis is a girl's name."

"It's only been since that legend entered Earth mythology a few thousand years ago." he said quickly, trying to move past the subject.

"So cats on the moon live for thousands of years and talk?"

"No! Again, how do you _know _this already? This is uncanny!"

"I've been having visions and dreams. They're on the moon, and there's this big war going on."

Artemis looked towards the floor. "Yes. The last stand of the Silver Millennium. The great moon kingdom."

Mina was very interested. "What do you know about it?"

"Many thousands of years ago, much of the solar system was governed by an empire based on the moon, the Silver Millennium. All the worlds were ruled by the royal family, and the prosperity of the kingdom was defended by the four legendary warriors, Sailor Mars," he motioned towards the picture of the girl in red and white, 'Sailor Mercury," the girl in blue and white, "Sailor Jupiter," the girl in green and white Mina had called "Earth," "and their leader, Sailor Venus."

"Me."

"Yes. You are the reincarnation of the greatest soldier of the greatest empire in the history of this system."

Mina sat down on her bed. "I don't remember any greatness or prosperity. All I remember is a lot of fighting."

"A great evil arose on Earth. An evil that was formless, Metallia. It seduced a witch by the name of Beryl," he motioned toward the picture of the evil looking woman. "Beryl was granted great power, and she gathered the most powerful men on Earth, save one, and an army of dark creatures such as has never been seen before or since, and attacked the moon. Beryl and her forces were utterly destroyed in the battle, but at great cost. The princess," he identified the girl with the meatball head, "and all of the Sailor Soldiers were killed, except for Venus.

"And what none of us could have guessed," Artemis continued, "was that by fighting at all we had lost. For Metallia was only using Beryl as a pawn. All the energy expended during the battle fed Metallia and made it stronger. With our forces decimated we were helpless when the great evil attacked itself.

"In desperation the queen used the power of the silver emporium crystal, the holy jewel of the royal family, to defeat Metallia. The magic of the crystal would allow the dead princess and her protectors to be reborn at a later time. The spell was so powerful, however, that it cost the queen her own life."

"So I was born just to protect this person I've never met?" Mina asked, not liking the idea one bit.

"The hope was that you'd be able to live your lives without that burden or the one that comes with the memories of the old time."

"So why are you here telling me all this?"

"It appears that the queen's spell may have backfired somewhat. We have reason to believe that Beryl and part of her forces, maybe even Metallia itself, have been brought back as well. It became imperative to find the lost soldiers and teach them to use their powers to cambat this threat once again."

"You want me to go off and fight people that destroyed this moon kingdom?" Mina asked with a familiar horrible feeling in her stomach.

"Yes. But not quite yet. We may be completely wrong about Beryl being resurrected, and even if we are not, she will not be strong enough to reveal herself for a long time. Only then can we even find her."

"But it is better to be safe than sorry, so you want me to train to be ready."

"Yes. Since you know so much, have you discovered your power yet?""

Mina sighed and looked the other way. "Venus."

The bright orange light enveloped her again, and when it faded she was in the same outfit she had been in in the room of requirement.

"Hm." Artemis observed. "That is not what Sailor Venus looked like. It appears that you have awoken too early, before you were ready for your true power."

"So I can't fight the fights you want me to?"

"No. You will eventually be ready, and even in this form you have fantastic powers that it would be good for you to learn to control."

Mina thought about it. Fantastic powers…

"If you teach me to use this power, would I be able to fight dementors?"

Artemis' head jerked in shock. "There are still dementors in this world?"

"Yeah. They've been giving me these visions."

"That explains much. Dementors were among the foulest creatures under Beryl's control. The powers of Sailor Venus were uniquely well suited for combating them, but in your current form I don't know how you'd fare. One would be simple. Even a small group would probably be manageable, but a large group…probably not."

It already sounded more effective than Mina's patronus. And as she thought about the use of such power she remembered Sirius Black and his infiltration of Hogwarts to kill Harry Potter.

"I'll do it, Artemis."/

_Thanks to everyone who has reviewed, favorited, or subscribed to this story. I was very pleasantly surprised by the response it has received._

_Mina was always going to meet Artemis in this chapter. It just seemed like the right time._

_As for her being in her Sailor V costume instead of the Sailor Venus one, she is, as Artemis stated, not ready yet. It'll be a while before she "graduates" to fully becoming Sailor Venus, assuming the story goes that far or she lives that long._

_And a romance between her and Harry? Well, anything can happen with the senshi of love, maybe even the transformation of a certain blonde Slytherin._


	8. Training

Mina kept Artemis hidden until after she got on the Hogwarts Express back to school. The plan was to come back in the summer and say that she got him at Hogsmeade. But there was nothing unusual about getting a cat over the Christmas break, and Artemis received a lot of attention from her fellow students.

"What a cute kitty! What's its name?"

"Artemis."

"Ooh. And she seems so well behaved."

Artemis gave a little growl that was mistaken for a pur while Mina laughed. "Actually, Artemis is a he."

"You named a boy cat Artemis?"

"I'm not his first owner. He won't respond to any other name now."

"And his first owner did that to him?" one girl asked, pointing at the crescent shaped bald spot.

"Yup."

When classes started again the first care of magical creatures lesson seemed like a good omen for the rest of the term. The students collected kindling for a bonfire full of giant salamanders, magical fire loving beasts that few of the third years had ever prepared before.

Mina wondered guiltily if the unusually good lesson had anything to do with her outburst the last time she had spoken with Hagrid. While collecting leaves for the fire she went over to Harry.

"No flobberworms today."

Harry smiled. "No flobberworms ever. They all died from eating too much lettuce."

"Oh, that's too bad." Mina said, also smiling.

After class Mina apologized to Hagrid for her behavior in November and December. Hagrid was pleased that she was speaking with him again.

"They work yeh kids too hard. I knew yeh jus' needed a vacation is all. Come on. Beaky'll be pleased the see yeh."

Sure enough, Buckbeak, still bound by the neck near Hagrid's hut, started squawking happily when she approached and let her approach without bowing first.

"You poor thing," she said as she petted him, "all tied up out here in the cold." She turned to Hagrid. "Why is he still tied up? Haven't they resolved it yet?"

Hagrid's face grew sad. "There's gonna be a hearing abou' it. Hermione's helping me research teh present a good case, but it don' look good."/

When Mina headed back into the castle and up the stairs to divination she found Harry Potter and Ron Weasely in a loud argument with their friend Hermione Granger.

"I said I wonder what's wrong with Lupin," Ron was saying, "and you-"

"Well isn't it obvious?" Hermione stated rather than asked, interrupting Ron. 'Of course the know-it-all Hermione figured it out.' Mina thought.

"If you don't want to tell us, don't."

"Fine."

Ron and Harry set off and Hermione remained behind, trying to close her book bag which was filled to overflowing. Mina walked up to her.

"You know, that moon wasn't exactly the most obvious thing. It didn't have any craters."

Hermione looked at her in surprise. "_You_ know?"

"If you think it's so obvious your friends should get it why shouldn't I?" Mina asked angrily.

"I'm sorry. I just thought-"

"I'll have you know we Hufflepuffs are not a bunch of thick-headed trolls. And I'm not just a blonde ditz like I'm made out to be."

"I never said…" But this was one corner Hermione couldn't talk herself out of . "You're right. I shouldn't assume things."

"Good. Remember that." Mina went off to divination./

Hufflepuff had the unfortunate reputation as being the place where the rejects went, the students who didn't have the strengths of the other houses. They were supposed to lack the courage, brains, and wit which defined Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin, respectively. And Mina, with mediocre grades and nothing that stood out about her other than her Quidditch skills, had gained the reputation of the stereotypical blonde by default among those who did not know her.

But that night Mina had a chance to begin to change that. For she and Artemis went to the room of requirement to begin her training in her powers as a Sailor Soldier. The sorting hat must have seen something of her past as one of the greatest warriors in history, and yet it had put her in Hufflepuff instead of Gryffindor. She could prove that a Hufflepuff could be just as brave as any Gryffindor and just as cunning as any Slytherin.

The room of requirement had the form that Artemis wanted it to have. There were full sized dummies, paper targets along the walls, bars for exercises like pull ups, and the room itself was the largest she had seen it other than the times it became the room of hidden things.

"Amazing." Artemis had been fascinated by the world of magic, and had spent the day in the library learning as much as he could, but he wanted to learn much more before considering its applications in battle against Beryl.

"All right." he said when she transformed. "This is for you. It is a powerful weapon." He presented her with a glowing, crescent shaped compact.

Mina took it with some skepticism. "Where did you keep this? In your butt?"

"It's not important." Artemis said quickly.

"Ewww."

"That's enough. Open it."

She opened the compact, and a bright light shot upwards out of it. The light hit the ceiling and began to expand in all directions in the same manner as the top of a mushroom cloud.

"Close it!" As it shut the light lingered for an unusually long time. "That light has certain healing properties. It can drive evil influences away. However the compact only has a limited amount of power and can only be charged by the light of the full moon. It also has an offensive capability." As Artemis spoke three of the dummies moved to the center of the room, twenty-five meters away from Mina. "Throw it at the middle dummy."

Mina complied, throwing it with all her might. Mina was not used to throwing weapons, and her aim was not as good as it was with large balls like the Quaffle. The compact struck the dummy a half-meter to the left of the one she was aiming for, cutting its arm off completely and leaving a charred shoulder. It then arced around behind the dummies, flying in a circle that ended back at Mina's hand.

"Hm. That could have been better. Lets try it a few more times and see if you can improve. You don't have to throw it so hard at things so close. You can make it easier to catch again by holding back a little more."

Each time Mina threw the compact it circled back to her hand. By her fourth throw she had gotten it through the chest of the center dummy, leaving a large, smoldering hole.

"That's good, but I think it'll be enough for today with the compact. It'll start to run out of power soon. You will really want to keep it charged, as you can use it even without transforming if you're in a pinch. Its light should keep dementors away too."

"So what powers do I have myself?"

"You can charge a beam of focused energy through your pointer finger. The key is to focus your strength into your finger while pointing. At this stage saying the words "crescent beam" would be extremely helpful."

As he spoke many paper targets replaced the three dummies twenty-five meters away. Mina picked one and slowly aimed at it with her finger, hr right arm fully outstretched and held in place by her left.

"Crescent beam!"

A thin beam of energy shot out of the tip of her finger and burned through the target. It continued into the wall behind., leaving a deep hole.

"Wow." Mina stared at her hand. 'So much power,' she thought, 'just in my finger!'

"Try aiming faster now. In a fight the enemy won't let you delicately line up your shots."

"Right." She began firing off crescent beams more quickly, missing the targets as often as she hit them because she was not aiming as carefully. Whether she hit or missed she was creating new holes in the wall.

When she thought she was done Artemis yelled "behind!" Mina turned around and shot quickly at a final target that had moved behind her. Though it was only fifteen meters away she still missed do to her having not finished turning when she fired. On her second shot she destroyed the target.

Mina stared at the wall behind the targets. It now looked like swiss cheese.

"I'm not paying for that."

"You've got the natural coordination needed, but we'll have to work on that aim. There was one last thing I wanted to see tonight. Your fighting skills."

One of the remaining dummies moved right in front of Mina. Its arms and legs shifted into a fighting stance.

"Fighting skills?"

"Hand to hand combat was often more useful that energy against Beryl's monsters. If what you've told me about this room is true, then these dummies should be good sparring partners. When you're ready it'll start fighting you."

"Ok." Mina gulped and took the best approximation of a fighting stance she could. Artemis immediately began to correct her. She hadn't moved her legs far apart enough, she hadn't bent her knees enough. She hadn't turned her body enough. And she was blocking too much of her vision with one of her hands.

When she had gotten the stance perfect Artemis had her hold it for a while, until she started to get sore from standing so still. She then practiced getting into that exact stance several times, doing a good enough job to satisfy Artemis.

"All right. Now try to fight. The dummy should go easy on you."

"Thanks." she muttered, wondering if the blasted cat realized how insulting that last sentenced sounded. She slipped back into the stance.

'Now.' she thought.

In a blur the dummies back hand shot forward. Mina had no time to react as it hit her squarely in the nose. She fell straight back, her head luckily landing on a pillow the room had just conjured for her.

As Artemis put a paw to his face Mina sat up, holding her bleeding nose.

"Owwww."

"Are you all right?"

"Other than a broken nose, yeah."

"It didn't hit you hard enough to break your nose."

"Well it still really hurts."

"If you want to train to be Sailor Venus you're going to have to learn to take hits like that. Otherwise all the training with the compact and the crescent beam won't mean a thing in actual combat. You have to decide. Do you want to continue or not?"

Mina thought again about the dementors. About Harry and Sirius Black. There was no way she could stop now.

As she got up and faced the dummy again, she knew that that night and the rest of the semester would be filled with bruises./

_As I already showed Sailor Venus killing Queen Beryl in the first chapter like she did in the manga and then looking at the battle like it was over it seems logical that she would have survived that particular battle. It doesn't mean that she survived the assault of Mettalia, however._

_I have long since decided how any romance in this story would play out. I don't want to give it away, but I think certain things can already be inferred about Mina's feelings._


	9. Attack on Gryffindor Tower

On the nights that Mina trained, the nights she needed sleep the most, her nightmares were more regular and worse. They always involved fighting and death, and always had Mina waking up sweating and then whimpering into her pillow.

At those times Mina would realize with dread that that carnage was what she was preparing for. She took so many hard hits each training session that she never had a pain free day. It was worse than she could have imagined, and she knew that it was nothing at all compared to what she would be forced to face when Beryl resurfaced.

Though Artemis was unsympathetic during their training, taking no excuses and pushing Mina to her limits every time, outside of training he was always ready to listen, to explain, to assure Mina that everything would be ok, to be cuddled when she needed to hold something warm and fluffy, and to lick her tears away when she cried.

It was his companionship that kept Mina sane during those first weeks of the Spring term. She could still snap at people over very little, but she was doing that less than she had in November and December. Having someone to talk to about her problems went a long way towards calming her down.

But Artemis couldn't help her with her flying. Cedric Diggory had seen the match between Slytherin and Ravenclaw during the first week of term and had determined that Slytherin, which had won, would have a huge advantage over Hufflepuff because every player on the Slytherin team had a Nimbus 2001 broomstick, the second fastest kind in the world. As a result he insisted on having many Quidditch practices even though Hufflepuff's next game would not come for months.

Mina's flying was still decent, but sub par for her as sitting on her broomstick was made more difficult by the soreness she usually had from her nights in the room of requirement. The difference was enough to be noticed by Diggory, who insisted on even more practices as a result to get her back into shape.

So between training with Artemis and Quidditch practice Mina had little time for her homework and her grades were still suffering even though she was focusing much better than she had at the end of the previous semester.

Still, she was improving. Her aim with the crescent beam and the compact got progressively better (and the walls of the room of requirement seemed to self-repair when they were away, much to Mina's relief) though the latter was not used as much as it needed to be recharged after Mina had opened it in the first session. Mina was also getting better at blocking the attacks of the dummies, though anything would have been an improvement over her first few tries.

It wasn't long before Artemis thought he knew enough about magic to begin to work it into the training regimen. First he had her try out this spell he had found, the reductor curse on a pair of stone tables. The result was the appearance of a large crack in the side of one of the tables.

"Now transform and try it again."

After transforming Mina pointed her wand at the other table and shouted "reducto!"

The table exploded with a shockwave powerful enough to know both Mina and Artemis over. It wasn't the falling down that hurt so much as how loud the explosion was. Their ears were both ringing terribly. The entire mass of the stone table had been reduced to a cloud of dust that was so thick it was difficult to see through. It burned their throats and stung their eyes.

Artemis jumped on Mina's shoulder and motioned towards the doorway, signaling that it was time to leave. Neither could speak loudly because of the dust cloud or hear softer sounds because of the explosion.

Back in the Hufflepuff dormitory, where their ears had a chance to recover, Artemis was very pleased.

"I thought so." he whispered on the off chance that someone might come by and overhear them. When you transform your magical abilities also become much more powerful. This will prove _very _useful in battle."

"Artemis," Mina asked, "I had more abilities in my visions. There were attacks that could go though an army of monsters, and a big glowing sword."

"The sword is the weapon of the leader of the Sailor Soldiers. You haven't fully transformed yet. That's why you can't use Sailor Venus' most powerful moves or the sword. When you do I expect your spells become even more powerful than they are now."/

Mina had been worried about Filch or one of the teachers finding out how she was using the room of requirement, but never thought that Harry Potter of all people would notice that she was sneaking off to the seventh floor.

One care of magical creatures class Harry asked her "Is Mina short for something?"

"Minako. Why?"

"Just wondering." Harry was not going to tell her about the map he had acquired, the one that showed the location of every person in Hogwarts. He sometimes stayed up to look at it to see what Professor Dumbledore or other teachers were doing, and had noticed the name 'Minako Aino' moving along the seventh floor pretty often. Discretion regarding the map won out over his curiosity about what she was up to./

Diggory had the whole Hufflepuff team watch the game that Gryffindor played against Ravenclaw. Word had leaked that Harry Potter had acquired a Firebolt, the single fastest broom in the world, and Diggory wanted to impress on his team the difference having a great broom can make. Gryffindor won handily, ending any hopes Ravenclaw had of winning that year's cup. Gryffindor still had one more game to play against Slytherin before the finals, but they would have to win by more than 250 points to face Hufflepuff for the championship.

At the game certain students, including Draco Malfoy, had dressed up as dementors to try to distract Harry from the match. Harry had shot his patronus at them, a giant silver thing far more impressive than anything Mina had been able to produce during her lessons with Professor Lupin.

That night, during training, Mina attempted the patronus charm while transformed. The result was a glowing silver mass far more substantial than what she would have been able to create in her normal form. But she still thought that it was not as good as the one that Harry had been able to produce./

The next day a change had come over the school. Teachers were seen in the corridors more and seemed tenser. Filch was boarding up passageways, and Professor Flitwick was teaching the front doors to recognize Sirius Black. The word spread like wildfire.

_Sirius Black had broken into Gryffindor tower with a knife._

The details were varied and wild. Apparently Black had stolen a sheet with the Gryffindor passwords and awoken one of the students by slashing a curtain with a knife. The student saw him, yelled out, and Black fled.

No one was hurt, but Mina was still concerned about Harry, who had now obviously been targeted twice. She voiced this concern to him two days later at the end of their next care for magical creatures class, asking him if he was all right, but had not expected his hands to clench in a barely concealed rage.

"He was there." Harry muttered. _"Right there_. And I didn't know it. I couldn't do anything."

"What could you have done?"

"Kill him." Harry said a little too matter-of-factly.

"What? Harry, you can't want to fight a serial killer just because-"

"He's done much more than that!" Harry hissed.

Mina was horrified at this strange change in Harry. She couldn't bring herself to ask what Black had done though, the possibilities in her head being too horrible, and ran over to Hagrid's hut for her usual visits with the gamekeeper and Buckbeak.

Ron had been a bit behind them as he had taken longer to gather his stuff. "Hey!" he yelled after Mina. "What about me? I was the one who was attacked!"

"She knows about Black trying to kill me." Harry told him. It didn't stop Ron from being annoyed that Harry had gotten some of the attention Ron had been receiving the past few days. He never got to vent his annoyance, however.

"She knows about _that,_ too?"

The boys turned around to see Hermione Granger, who had herself turned to look back at Mina. She shook her head and walked past Harry and Ron to the castle.

"I'm getting another one of those feelings about Hermione not telling us something." Ron said./

"So this is the second time this Black has broken into the castle?" Artemis asked.

"Yeah. He wants to kill Harry Potter."

"Twice in a few months, with no sign that the dementors noticed him coming or going, and no sign that he's been in the Hogsmeade village. I think he's been hiding in the grounds the whole time."

"Where on the grounds could he hide from the dementors?"

"I don't know. Maybe the forest? I think I should start checking the grounds myself. There are things a cat can do that even wizards can't."

"Let me know if you find him."

Artemis looked into Mina's eyes, which had become hard and determined. "You want to fight him yourself?"

"You bet I do. The life of a friend of mine is at stake. And for all I know _he's_ going to look for this maniac himself."

Artemis smiled. "That's the attitude I want to see from the leader of the Sailor Soldiers."/

_Harry didn't react that way in the book, but in the extended scenes of the movie he was upset that he had missed a chance to kill Black and I liked the idea enough to put it in._


	10. The Map

The night was cold, the air heavy, as he moved slowly through the grounds, following the footprints in the snow. They were large for children, but not for the older students or the teachers. He did not recognize the smell of the one who made them, but they led towards the forbidden forest, unlike the majority which seemed to circle the grounds aimlessly.

But whoever had made them had not gone into the forest. They stopped a stone's throw away, where some sort of activity seemed to have occurred. There were mounds of ice in the snow with carrots and scarves, as if someone had melted some snowmen. The prints then turned back towards the castle.

Artemis shook his head and walked into the forest. The branches made the snow on the ground irregular and he had to be careful to quietly tread on the leaves and sticks in the dry patches. The forest had many strange smells, but other than that of Hagrid next to none that came from humans.

There was a rustling sound to his left. He turned and saw a pair of glowing eyes staring at him. The fur on the back of his neck stood up and he hunched over, ready to pounce.

The creature came forward. It was a huge cat, at least three times Artemis' size, with messy ginger fur. Artemis' eyes followed it as it walked passed him, pausing for an instant to give a grunt-like meow in his direction, and wander off.

Artemis breathed a sigh of relief. But it was just another fruitless night.

"Black, where the hell are you?"/

The Marauders Map showed the exact position of every person in Hogwarts and many passages through and out of the castle that even Filch did not know about, and yet Mina disappeared from it regularly on the seventh floor.

Harry had gone to the spot she disappeared once and found nothing but a wall. He asked Fred and George if they knew of anything strange there. They knew that there was a giant storage room that sometimes appeared, but little more than that. When they owned the map they never noticed that the storage room was not on it and were as surprised as Harry by its omission.

They took Harry there one day, impressing him with the sheer size of the room. What it was Mina was storing they had no idea, but it no longer bothered Harry as much as it had. It wasn't a way for Sirius Black to get into Hogwarts./

"Listen, Mina. You should go to Hogsmeade this weekend."

Mina raised an eyebrow. "I was already planning on doing that, Artemis."

"Yes. But I don't mean for pleasure. I mean to watch on Harry Potter."

"Why?"

"Hogsmeade is not as well protected as Hogwarts. He is a much easier target there, making it more likely that he'll get attacked."

"I thought you were sure that he was somewhere on the grounds."

"I'm having so much trouble finding a hint of him that I'm beginning to wonder if I was wrong. Right now it's just as likely that he is in Hogsmeade as here. It's best to be safe."

"So what do you want me to do?"

"Watch him while he's there. Follow him around and be ready in case he runs into trouble."

Mina rolled her eyes. "No vacations or weekends off on this job, are there?"

"Not when the bad guys love weekends so much."/

Mina was among the first students to make it to Hogsmeade that day and waited for Harry to arrive at the end of the path between the school and the village.

But Harry did not show up. Neither did Hermione Granger. Only Ron Weasley came. Mina followed him instead into Honeydukes, where they both looked at sweets to buy.

Mina thought that Ron was possibly going to meet someone there since he lingered for so long, but he turned around as if tapped on the shoulder while considering a dragon flavored taffy, looked as though he was talking to someone even though no one was there, and then walked out.

Mina followed Ron, who still looked like he was talking to himself, to the Three Broomsticks where he ordered two butterbeers. Mina again thought that he was meeting someone there, but he put the second butterbeer under the table as if to save it for later.

Ron then headed, still alone, to the Shrieking Shack, an old house that had the reputation of being haunted. Mina could take it no more. She had to know what Ron was doing and more importantly where Harry was, so she approached Ron.

"Hey, Ron. D'you know where Harry is?"

Ron looked taken aback for a moment, but then said "Harry's not here. He's not allowed into Hogsmeade cause he never got the form signed."

"Not allowed?"

"He's back at the castle."

Mina muttered a curse under her breath. All that planning and Harry couldn't even get to Hogsmeade in the first place! And if he was at Hogwarts that's where the danger would be. With several teachers also in the village security at the school would be lessened from its usual standard.

She turned to leave and head back to the castle, but not far in front of her was an unwelcome sight, Draco Malfoy and Crabbe and Goyle.

"I should be getting an owl from my dad soon." Malfoy was saying as he spoke of the Buckbeak's hearing at the Ministry of Magic. "That hippogriff's as good as dead." he concluded.

"You'd better hope not, Malfoy." Mina spat. "I still might use you as a bludger."

The Slytherins stopped. Malfoy in particular looked flustered, but regained his composure after a few moments.

"Come within a meter of me, mudblood, and I'll make sure that you get expelled."

"Wash your mouth, you slimy little git!" Ron yelled, coming up beside Mina.

"Crabbe, Goyle, the mud blood and the Weasel need to be taught a lesson." The two of them lumbered forward menacingly.

Ron gulped, but Mina smiled. With her new skills she could beat those thick trolls without her wand or her soldier powers. Malfoy was next.

But she never got to fight, for Malfoy suddenly cried "ugh!" and all eyes turned towards him. He was wiping snow out of the back of his hair.

Another snowball hit Malfoy, then several others hit Crabbe and Goyle. Mina and the Slytherins looked around to see who was throwing them, but there was no one there. Ron laughed loudly.

"Very haunted out here, isn't it?"

Malfoy pointed frantically at a spot on the ground. "There!" Crabbe ran at the spot, but stumbled forward as if hit in the back. He then charged at the only people he could see, Mina and Ron. Something tripped him and he fell.

And appearing above him was the head of Harry Potter.

Mina and the Slytherins all screamed, and the latter ran away.

Harry's head disappeared again, but Ron went to where he had been standing.

"Harry! You'd better run for it! If Malfoy tells anyone-you'd better get back to the castle quick!"

"See you later." the disembodied voice of Harry said somberly.

"Look," Ron said to Mina, "Harry'll be in so much trouble. We've got to get back there and say that we got everything for him."

"Right." She ran off, leaving Ron behind. At the first call of "Hey! Wait for me!" she doubled back and grabbed Ron by the arm, dragging him all the way back to the castle.

At her full speed she could have overtaken Malfoy, but dragging Ron slowed her down even though she dragged Ron faster than he could run. Ron's first instinct on getting back was to head to Snape's office, as Snape would be the one Malfoy would go to.

Sure enough, Professors Snape and Lupin were interrogating Harry in Snape's office. Mina pulled Ron to the doorway of the office where he exclaimed exhaustedly "I got that stuff for Harry at Zonko's-ages ago!"

This satisfied Lupin, who led the three students away from the furious Snape to the great hall, which was empty with most of the student population in Hogsmeade.

Once out of earshot of anyone else Lupin allowed the anger to enter his features. He held an old peace of parchment to Harry's face.

"I don't want to hear explanations." Lupin said. "I happen to know that this map was confiscated by Mr. Filch many years ago."

Harry's and Ron's mouth's dropped open at the fact that Lupin knew it was a map, but Mina was just confused. She gathered that Harry used the map to get to Hogsmeade I spite of the danger, but she had never heard of a map like Lupin described. Her confusion was evident enough to Lupin that he realized she knew nothing about it and did not include her in his criticisms.

They started walking after Lupin had left, the boys looking guilty and depressed.

"Thanks," Harry muttered.

"No problem." Mina resisted the urge to tell Harry that he had been stupid. He was figuring that out on his own. "How did you become invisible?"

"Invisibility cloak."

"You have an invisibility cloak! For real!"

Mina continued to ask questions about the cloak for a while. It explained much about how Harry and his friends had found out so much about the Chamber of Secrets the year before and even gone into it to destroy the monster. Some questions Harry answered fully while others he evaded.

Mina did not realize that they had been walking to the Gryffindor common room until they were by the portrait of the fat lady. Hermione was outside it, having been looking for the boys in the common room. She had terrible news.

"Hagrid lost his case. Buckbeak's going to be executed."


	11. Sailor V Kick

_Well. I said on "In the Shadow of a Hero" that I'd update this story by the end of the week, and look! I do it the next day./_

"They can't do this!" Harry said angrily. "Buckbeak isn't dangerous!"

"Yeah," Mina agreed. "Malfoy doesn't pay attention in class and it's Buckbeak that gets punished? Where's the justice in that?"

"Malfoy's dad frightened the committee into it." Hermione said, crying. "You know what he's like. They're a bunch of doddery old fools and they're scared. There'll be an appeal though. There always is. "/

Hagrid was a broken man at their next care of magical creatures class. Everything he said was punctuated by sobs, and by snickers from Malfoy and his cronies.

"Harry," Mina whispered. "You beat Slytherin this Saturday, you hear?"

"You bet."/

The Quidditch match between Gryffindor and Slytherin was a short one. The moment it became apparent that Gryffindor could not take the sort of commanding lead required to advance to the finals Harry resolved himself to denying Malfoy a victory. He pointed at the snitch the moment he saw it to let Malfoy know where it was and even gave Malfoy a head start in flying towards it. When he overshot Malfoy with the superior speed of the firebolt he achieved his desired result, the humiliation of Draco Malfoy.

Gryfindor won by less than 150 points and was therefore still only third in the league. Hufflepuff would face Slytherin in the Quidditch final just the following week. Hufflepuff had a two hundred point advantage over Slytherin and would win the cup even if they lost as long as it was by less than that amount.

But that did not satisfy Cedric Diggory. He and the rest of the Hufflepuff team knew that they had over performed so far that year and that they still could not compete with the Slytherin team's Nimbus 2001s. He scheduled practices every hour the field was not booked by the Slytherin team.

Mina had almost made her way to the Quidditch pitch for the first practice when Harry Potter stopped her.

"Take this." he said, handing her the firebolt.

"What? That's your broom! I can't take that!"

"Listen. Neither of us wants Slytherin to win. With this you can fly rings around Malfoy."

"Right." Mina hesitantly took the broom.

"Keep it safe. I'll want it back after the cup is over."

"Yeah. Thanks."

"Good luck."/

Mina caused quite a commotion when she showed up with the firebolt. After she explained how Harry had given it to her and his reasons Diggory looked thoughtfully at the legendary broom for a full minute before walking Mina to the other end of the pitch where they could talk privately.

"For this game you're team seeker."

"What?"

"The important thing in the match is the snitch. I'm not beating a Nimbus 2001 with my broom, and a single firebolt would be wasted on a single chaser when all our other brooms are so outmatched. I'm really tempted to take the firebolt myself, but I suspect that Potter might not want me to use it after our last match, and you can fly about as well as I can. So you practice seeking with that and I'll get used to chasing again. I can't wait to see Flint's expression when he finds out he's going up against this again."/

When word got out that Mina now had the firebolt she became the target of many hexes from the Slytherin house. She took to carrying Artemis on her shoulder, who watched for trouble and whispered "duck" in her ear whenever he spotted it. She always reacted fast enough that the spells sailed over her head, causing varying amounts of damage.

The larger a group of people the more superstitious they become, and Mina's repeated narrow escapes earned her a reputation among the Slytherins as being untouchable.

It was a term that Mina only wished truly applied to her. That week she had only time for one training session, and Artemis was making sure that it would be enough to suffice for a whole week.

"Mina," he said as she held her forearms in front of her to shield her body and block the ferocious assault of the dummy she was fighting, "you seem somewhat…obsessed with this Quidditch thing."

"It's the championship." Mina said. She had progressed to the point where she talk to Artemis and concentrate on the enemy in front of her at the same time. Sooner or later it's flurry of attacks would stop and she'd have a brief opening to retaliate.

"Yes, but you all you think about now is beating this Malfoy character. It seems like you've forgotten about Sirius Black.

"I haven't forgotten. I just can't _do _anything about Black right now. Malfoy is evil too, and I can do something about him."

"By beating him at a _game?_"

"Well I-" The dummy stopped it's attacks and Mina took the opportunity to try to punch it, but before she could it stuck out its leg and swept her feet out from under her.

She hit the ground hard. "You see? You need to pay more attention." Artemis said.

"Oh, shut up." Mina grumbled.

She rose and took out all her frustration on the dummy, in a sweeping roundhouse kick that knocked its head completely off.

"Holy-"Artemis gasped. Mina stared at her handiwork in surprise. "You can break through walls with that kick!"

Mina took another kick at the dummy, this time her foot going through its chest and out of its back. 'Wow.' she thought. 'I didn't think this training had this much of an effect'

She sat down and wiped the sweat from her forehead. "Look. With the Fat Lady back Black can't get into Gryffindor tower again even with the passwords. And with the security being upgraded all the time it's too risky for him to stay so near the castle. You haven't found a trace of him. He probably left because he's so scared of that dementor's kiss thing the Daily Prophet was talking about."

Artemis shuddered.

"What is a dementor's kiss anyway? Is it that bad?"

"Yes. The dementor's kiss.. sucks out a person's soul."

"So it's how dementor's kill people?"

"No. It's much worse. You remain alive, but your being is gone, and it cannot move on even once your body dies."

"Yeesh. And they really think that Black deserves that. He must be one bad dude."

"Mina, I'm really worried. Have you considered that Black may come back in spite of everything? The man is not supposed to be rational."

Mina sighed. "Hey. I'm still going to these sessions, aren't I? I still mean to be prepared for him."/

_The funny thing is the focus of this chapter was originally supposed to be on the Quidditch final, and then I didn't even include the game here. Things get away sometimes. Oh well, next time._

_We're coming to the end of this school year, but that's where the plot really happens in the Harry Potter books._


	12. The Quidditch Final

The weather was perfect for the Quidditch final. No wind and perfect sunshine.

Actually Mina thought that the sunshine would make it harder for her to see the snitch, but that was a disadvantage that Malfoy had as well. He was visibly uncomfortable when he saw her on the pitch with the firebolt.

The whistle blew and they were off. Mina climbed high above the game, the firebolt letting her reach the altitude she wanted before anyone had gotten the quaffle.

Malfoy sped up behind her and began to mark her movements, obviously trying to make sure that she didn't get the snitch before Slytherin was enough in the lead that he could afford to catch it himself.

And Slytherin did take an early lead. They scored three goals within the first five minutes and another two before Diggory scored his first.

The moment after Diggory had scored the Slytherin captain, Flint, crashed into him at nearly full speed, an incident the announcer for the game, a cursing Griffindor named Lee Jordan, assured the crowd was deliberate. Madam Hooch awarded a penalty shot to Hufflepuff and Diggory scored again.

It was the pattern the game would fall into. The Slytherins were the dirtiest players Mina had ever seen. One of them actually grabbed the small second year by the head. Each instance was followed by a penalty shot for Hufflepuff, keeping the game relatively close. In that way the Slytherin team shot themselves in the foot.

Mina was so distracted by the Slytherin tactics that she almost forgot about the snitch. When she finally did see it, she hesitated and stared at it a few seconds too long, giving one of the Slytherin beaters a chance to target her.

She accelerated towards the snitch a few seconds before the bludger hit her in the back. She flipped over with the firebolt and struggled to right it. When she did the snitch had disappeared.

She rubbed her back. It didn't hurt that much. She wondered if she should thank Artemis for teaching her to take a hit or some law of physics for the hit not being as hard as it could have been since she was flying in the same direction as the bludger.

She did a few loops just to show she was all right. The Slytherin beater and Malfoy looked at her in partial shock at how easily she shrugged off being hit by a bludger.

Now she turned her attention entirely to the snitch. After a few minutes she spotted it again near the Gryffindor stands. She again accelerated, but the firebolt only went a few feet before being jerked to a stop almost throwing her of the broom. She looked behind her and became enraged.

Malfoy had grabbed hold of the firebolt and stopped it. He was panting from the effort, but his eyes gleamed with satisfaction.

Mina would have kicked him as hard as she could if she could reach. So would most of the rest of the school. The boos for Mlafoy were deafening, but they were drowned out by the curses Lee Jordan was shouting into his substitute for a microphone and the screams of Professor McGonagall, who was standing beside him pointing angrily at Malfoy.

"Penalty!" Madam Hooch screamed. "I've never seen such tactics!"

Mina flew over to Madam Hooch as Hufflepuff took the penalty. "Maybe they should forfeit if Malfoy does that again."

"Yes." Madam Hooch agreed. She blew her whistle and flew to the middle of the pitch.

"The next person who grabs another person's broom or body part will lose the game for their team!"

There was another eruption of boos, this time from the Slytherin stands. There were many screams from the other stands as well.

"Kick them out _now!_"

Mina smirked at Malfoy, who looked like Christmas had been cancelled.

The game resumed with the Slytherin team more subdued. They still out-flew the Hufflepuffs for the most part, but they lost much of their swagger when they could not resort to the same sort of bullying.

And the third time Mina spotted the snitch there was nothing to stop her from accelerating to full speed and easily overtaking Malfoy to catch it.

The crowd roared. A Slytherin beater hit a bludger at her, but she dodged it easier. He would receive a detention later. The Hufflepuff team swarmed her, all jubilant that they had won the Quidditch cup for Hufflepuff for the first time in recent memory.

Mina could not decide what her favorite moment was that day. Dumbledore presenting the cup to Hufflepuff team. Hagrid patting her on the back (which hurt much more than the bludger had). Or when Harry Potter returned her hug when she gave him back the firebolt./

"Congratulations. That was some game." Artemis said, smiling.

"Thanks."

"So are you done with that Malfoy boy now?"

"I guess." Mina thought of Hagrid. "But it doesn't really help Buckbeak at all, does it?"

"No. I will admit that I find it satisfying though."

"Then it's not enough." She gave Artemis a hard look.

"Oh no, Mina. What are you thinking now?"

I'm not going to let them kill Buckbeak."


	13. The Dog

The hearing for Buckbeak was to be held the day final exams ended. The execution for sundown. Assuming that the appeal would fail, Mina had decided that she'd take matters into her own hands and release Buckbeak.

Artemis, seeing that she was not to be dissuaded, cautioned her about every step.

"Even if you are not caught there are many complications. Hagrid will be accused of freeing the hippogriff. And he'll get into trouble with the ministry. Who knows what Lucius Malfoy might do to him?"

"Don't tell me to drop it."

'I'm not! But you should realize that there is only one option. You've got to set the hippogriff loose only _after _the executioner sees it tied up. Only then will they know that Hagrid wasn't involved and he'll be safe."

"Then we might not get the chance at all."

"Yes. But in this case better Buckbeak than Hagrid."/

After the last exam Mina went outside where all the students who were finished with school were enjoying the June sunshine. She sat under a tree within sight of Hagrid's hut, pretending to be focused on soaking up sunshine. As she had thought, Hagrid had lost the appeal.

Artemis stayed with her, talking about her defense against the dark arts final, a gauntlet of moderately dangerous creatures that they had studied.. Mina had nearly gotten lost when she had come across the hinkypunk, but remembered that the creature was untrustworthy and went on her way. She didn't try to cast a patronus on the boggart at the end, but instead made a bucket of bleach spill on the dementor, turning most of it's black cloak white. It was one of only two exams that she thought she did well on; the other being care for magical creatures.

As the day grew later moved closer to the tree to better hide, all thought of soaking up some sun forgotten. Towards sunset they heard a knock on Hagrid's door. They looked, and at first nobody was there. Hagrid was just as confused when he opened the door, but realization seemed to dawn on him quickly and he closed the door.

A few seconds later Mina and Artemis began to hear voices inside. They went to a window which Mina hid below while Artemis looked inside.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione were inside, talking to Hagrid.

"How-"Artemis stammered.

"They've got an invisibility cloak." Mina whispered.

"Well I'll be. That would be really useful right about now. Do you think that that's"

"It's not big enough for Buckbeak."

"True."

There was a scream from inside. "Don't worry." Artemis said. "They just found a rat. Looks like it was the Weasely boy's missing pet or something like that."

A minute later Hagrid had shooed the three outside under the invisibility cloak, and not a moment too soon, for right afterwards four adults arrived, an old official, the executioner, Professor Dumbledore, and-

"Fudge!"

"Who?"

"The minister of magic!" Mina said.

"Oh wow. Do they really think this is such a big deal?"

"I guess so."

"Listen, Mina. You've got to wait until at least one of them sees Buckbeak tied up."

"I know, but by then it'll be too late."

All of the visitors went outside to look at Buckbeak while Mina and Artemis used the round curve of the hut to spy on them without being seen. It looked like they were going to do the execution then and there.

But then Dumbledore said something about more forms, and they all went inside.

Mina looked at Artemis. "This is perfect!"

"Yes. Do it quickly!"

She walked over to Buckbeak and bowed. The hippogriff gave an affectionate hoot and bowed back. She walked up to it, undid the ropes magically with her wand, and walked Buckbeak into the nearby forbidden forest.

A few seconds after they had disappeared the execution party came out again.

"Where the hell is it!" the executioner screamed.

"Beaky!" exclaimed Hagrid. "Bless em, he flew away!"

"He was tied up. We saw him. Someone must have set him loose."

"Mancair," Dumbledore said. "If someone did escape with Buckbeak do you think they'd just walk away? Search the skies if you wish, but I think I'd like some tea, if you don't mind Hagrid."

The people from the ministry walked away while Dumbledore and Hagrid went back into the hut.

"He's right." Mina said. "He should fly away." But Buckbeak was unwilling to fly, possibly because it did not want to leave Hagrid. Artemis hissed at it, which was good motivation for the creature to fly away.

"It'll probably be back." he said.

"But now Hagrid'll be able to do something about it without getting in trouble."

"Right. So how do we get back into the castle?"

Mina looked at Artemis, horrified. "I thought you had that figured out!"

"Me? This was your idea!"

"But you planned all the steps until now!"

"So what are we going to do? We can't stay in the forest all night."

"I don't-"

There was a growl behind them. They turned around to see a great, shaggy black dog approaching, foaming at the mouth. Mina gulped, but the dog ignored them as it walked past them and out of the forest.

"Whew. That thing looked rabid."

"Mina, what's happening out there?"

Mina looked up the hill towards the castle. Someone had started running like crazy. The next second two more people appeared out of thin air.

"It's Harry!"

"Mina, the dog!"

Sure enough, the giant dog had begun to charge at Harry Potter and his friends.

"Oh no!"

Mina and Artemis ran out of the forest, but they were so far behind.

The dog bit the one in front on the leg and began to drag him away. With a jolt Mina thought that it was Harry, until she heard his voice scream "Ron!"

The dog dragged Ron all the way to the whomping willow, where it and he disappeared from Mina's view. Harry and Hermione were struggling to get past the swinging branches.

Then the tree suddenly stopped attacking. 'Huh?' Mina thought. And Harry and Hermione disappeared too.

But Artemis was close enough to see where they went. "There's a gap in the roots. Some sort of tunnel underneath!"

"I see it. Let's hurry before the tree starts hitting things again."

"Mina, wait!"

"What?"

"Do you see that on the ground?"

Lying on one of the large roots near the tunnel entrance was a sheet that looked like it was made of an incredibly fancy fabric.

"You think that's the invisibility cloak?"

"Put it on!" After she had Artemis said "Yes! I can't see you! Now transform so you'll be at your best for whatever's down there!"

So Mina and Artemis slowly and silently worked their way through the long dark tunnel under the whomping willow. The walk seemed to take forever, but at last they heard

loud noises and raised voices, the sounds of a struggle.

Mina hurried into the room at the end of the tunnel. It was filled with furniture that had been torn by some large animal. A door in the room stood ajar. Mina went through it, her wand in one hand, the crescent compact in the other. It led to a staircase which she ascended. There was one more door open up there.

Inside Ron was on a bed, his leg broken. Hermione was standing against the wall, her hands over her mouth.

And Harry was pointing a wand at a filthy, hairy man on the floor who looked insane and yet strangely calm.

_Sirius Black._


	14. Sirius Black

For a minute all that could be heard was the sound of heavy breathing. The rage in Harry's face was terrifying to behold. He accused Black of murdering his parents, which Black did not deny, though he did claim that that was not the whole story. Harry would hear none of it and continued to speak, to talk himself into killing Black.

"This is ridiculous." Artemis whispered. "He's thirteen. He doesn't even know how to kill people."

"At least I won't have to stop Harry from doing that. But Black's going to remember that soon."

"Yes. Be ready."

But someone burst through the door behind her before Black showed ant signs of movement. With a cry of "Expelliarmus!" Professor Lupin disarmed everyone in the room, except for Mina, whose wand and crescent compact stayed strangely still under the invisibility cloak, and Black, who was already unarmed.

Mina got out of the way as Lupin strode into the room, a stern expression on his face. 'Thank god.' she thought.

"Where is he, Sirius?" Lupin asked.

Everyone gave Lupin an incredulous look. What was he talking about? Harry was right there. Then, more confusingly, Black pointed at _Ron._

"But then, why hasn't he shown himself before now? Unless," Lupin said with sudden realization, "_he_ was the one. Unless you switched without telling me."

"What is he _talking about?_" Mina asked Artemis. "What the hell does _Ron_ have to do with anything."

"I'm as confused as you are."

Lupin walked over to Black and the two men regarded each other for several seconds. Then, to everyone's horror, they hugged. Mina raised her wand but Artemis said "Wait! Something's wrong here! Lets get all the facts before we pounce!"

Though it went against every instinct in her body, Mina complied.

"I trusted you!" Harry screamed. "And all this time you've been his friend!"

"No, Harry. I have not been Sirius' friend for twelve years. But I am now. Let me explain."

"No!" Hermione screamed. "Harry, don't listen to him! He's been helping Black get into the castle! He wants you dead! He's a werewolf!"

Everyone was silent at the final revelation. Lupin looked at her calmly and shook his head.

"Not up to your usual standard Hermione. Only one out of three. I have not been helping Sirius into the castle and I do not want Harry dead. I do not deny, however, that I am a werewolf."

The atmosphere in the room had shifted even more against Lupin, who questioned Hermione on how she figured it out before saying "And speaking of people who realized that my bogart was the moon, where is Miss Aino?"

Mina nearly choked trying to suppress a gasp while Harry and Hermione just asked "who?" quite confusedly.

"Mina Aino. I saw her on the Marauder's Map following you here."

"Wait." Harry said. "You know how to work the map?"

"Certainly. I helped write it. I'm Moony."

He proceeded to tell the story of how the Whomping Willow was planted and the Shrieking Shack built to give him a place to go when he transformed once a month as a student at Hogwarts, how his friends, James Potter, Sirius Black, and Peter Pettigrew figured out his condition and became animagi to spend more time with him, how they, all transformed, explored the castle and grounds like no students before or since and thereby wrote the Marauders Map. Harry interrupted at one point by screaming that Dumbledore had been wrong to hire Lupin because he had been helping Black; at which point Lupin handed Harry, Ron, and Hermione back their wands and even gave Harry his and Black's own wands to try to show his trustworthiness.

But Lupin explained that he had always been too afraid to tell Dumbledore that he had betrayed the headmaster's trust in that way, and therefore never told anyone about Black's ability to transform into a large dog.

"No wonder we couldn't find him!" Artemis exclaimed. "We were looking for a person, not a dog!"

That night, Lupin said that he had predicted that Harry, Ron, and Hermione, would visit Hagrid before Buckbeak's execution, which they did. He had seen Mina sneaking around, possibly letting the hippogriff loose, but what shocked him was the extra person that had accompanied them when they left Hagrid's hut, Peter Pettigrew

"Isn't Pettigrew the name of the wizard Black killed?" Artemis asked.

"Yeah. What's he saying? They didn't leave with anyone else."

"Hold on! He said that Pettigrew was one of his friends that became an animagus, the rat!"

Sure enough, when Black finally spoke again, it was to accuse Ron's rat of being Peter Pettigrew. In a rage he launched himself at Ron, attempting to get at the rat, but Lupin stopped him.

"Sirius, wait! You can't just do it like that! They've got to understand!"

"Oh, I understand _perfectly._" said a voice from the doorway.

All turned to where Severus Snape stood, wand in hand, his mouth wider than any of them had ever it and a maniacal look in his eye.

"I went to your office to bring you your wolfsbane potion, Lupin, but you weren't there. I couldn't have that, not when the full moon's tonight. Lucky for me that map on your desk told me where you were. Lucky."

"Severus, listen."

"How I'd hoped I'd be the one to catch you Black. And as a bonus I get to tell Dumbledore he was wrong! He was so sure you were a _tame _werewolf, but now I've got proof that you've been helping Black all along."

"Professor Snape, maybe we should listen to them; it couldn't hurt, right?"

"Miss Granger, you are out of bed and out of bounds. _For once in your life, hold your tongue!"_

"Listen to yourself, man!" Lupin shouted. "Is a schoolboy grudge worth sending an innocent man to Azkaban?"

"It's all right, Remus." Black said. "As long as we show the rat to Dumbledore, I'm fine coming along."

"To Dumbledore?" Snape laughed. "I don't think so. I think we'll stop by the dementors on the way. They'll be so happy to see you they just might _kiss_ you."

"Mina," Artemis said, "do something about him! This can't be resolved with Snape here."

"But he's a teacher!"

But Mina was spared the choice of whether or not to attack the potions master when Harry and Hermione, perhaps angered by his enthusiasm for someone suffering the dementor's kiss, attacked him themselves. The double spell blasted Snape into the wall, knocking him out.

"Thank you." Lupin said.

"This doesn't mean I believe you." Harry said. "I just want to know the truth."

"Very well. Ron, would you please give me the rat? If he really is a rat I promise this won't hurt him."

After being handed his wand back by Harry (who still had Black's wand) Lupin held the rat by the tail and waved his wand at it.

The rat grew, until it was a short, fat, balding, ugly man. Harry, Ron, and Hermione leaned away. The animal they had known for three years was actually a person in disguise.

"Remus," he said, "Sirius, my old friends."

"We've got some questions for you, Peter, about what happened the night Lily and James died."

"You've got to protect me Remus. He's come back for me, like I knew he always would!"

"You knew Sirius would escape, when no one has done it before?"

"He's got dark powers the rest of us can only dream of! I expect He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named taught him a few tricks!"

Black laughed. "What? Voldemort, teach me tricks?"

Harry, who insisted on saying the name, was startled when he heard Blck say it casually. Pettigrew flinched.

"Can't stand to hear your old master's name? I don't blame you. They're not very happy with you, his other servants. Voldemort went to Godric's Hollow on your advice, and met his downfall there. I've heard them in Azkaban. They think that the dirty double crosser double crossed them and would kill you themselves if you were still alive. And not all of Voldemort's followers are safe in Azkaban. It's them you've been hiding from all these years, not me."

At last the story was beginning to make sense. Black had persuaded the Potters into making Pettigrew their secret keeper, think that Voldemort would come after him and ignore Pettigrew. But Pettigrew betrayed them to Voldemort and Black chased him, intending to kill him. He thought he had, but Pettigrew had been a little too fast in transforming and escaped, cutting off his own finger to make it look like he'd been murdered. Black was blamed for Pettigrew's actions and sent to Azkaban. The year before he saw a picture of the Weaselys in a newspaper brought to the prison and recognized the rat as Pettigrew. He then escaped as the dog to commit the murder he'd been imprisoned for.

"I don't know about you, Artemis," Mina whispered, "but this is giving me a headache."

At last everyone but the unconscious Snape was convinced of Black's innocence and Pettigrew's guilt, and Black grabbed Pettigrew from behind to hold him still.

"No transforming this time. Do it now, Remus!"

"No! Please! The Dark Lord, he would have killed me!"

"Then you should have died! As we would have for you!"

"You should have realized," Lupin said calmly, "that if Voldemort didn't kill you, we would."

"Wait!"

Harry had shouted it, and he looked surprised at himself.

"You can't kill him."

"Harry," Black said, "this man is the reason you have no parents."

"I know that, and he can go to the dementors, but I don't think my dad would want his friends to become killers just for him."

Lupin smiled. "He's right, Sirius."

"Fine." Black growled. "We'll go up to the castle and he can get what he deserves."

And they left through the tunnel towards the castle grounds, Pettigrew in magically conjured restraints and Ron and Snape being supported on conjured, floating stretchers.

Mina followed the procession, still under the invisibility cloak./

_This is probably the chapter that follows the book the most closely. I don't like quoting the conversations from the book so much, but it was kind of unavoidable this time._

_Next chapter is going to be called "The Werewolf." _


	15. The Werewolf

"The boy is a born leader." Artemis said. "That was a mature decision, to spare Pettigrew's life."

"I know." Mina said, smiling. Harry and Black were talking enthusiastically. Black apparently qualified as a legal guardian of Harry's

"Your decision to show such restraint is equally admirable. Very few people could stand sitting on the sidelines if they had your power."

"Thanks."

"Amazing that everything is going to work out when it could have gone so wrong so many times. Imagine if tonight was the full moon!"

Mina stopped. "Oh God."

"What?"

"Tonight…tonight…I think tonight _is _the full moon."

"But Lupin hasn't transformed at all!"

Mina looked up. "There are barely any stars. It's pretty cloudy…but one bad break in the clouds…"

"And we've got a monster loose."

"We've got to stay close, be ready for anything."

"Agreed, Mina."

They made to hurry and catch up with the others, but Lupin suddenly started convulsing. Mina looked up again. There was a patch of clouds that was less thick than most of the others, moonlight shining weakly through it.

"We're too late."

Lupin continued to scream as if in agony. His features began to bend in odd ways. The cloud cover broke completely and he threw back his head and howled.

"Come back!" Harry screamed. Pettigrew had taken the opportunity to transform and escape.

"Artemis, I'll trade you the rat for the werewolf."

"Deal." Artemis jumped off of Mina's shoulder and raced after Pettigrew. Mina turned her attention back to Lupin, who had gone completely furry.

Black transformed into the dog and leapt at Lupin, hitting him hard with his paw. Now with the werewolf's attention he ran off in the direction of the lake. The werewolf followed him.

"Sirius!" Harry ran after his godfather, Hermione on his heels, leaving Ron with his broken leg and the unconscious Snape behind.

Mina also followed, and even though she was under the invisibility cloak she was still fast enough to overtake Harry and Hermione. She passed them and was the first to reach the battle between the dog and the werewolf at the lake.

Black was losing. He had avoided being bitten, but concern for hurting his friend held him back and he had been slashed by the werewolf's claws numerous times.

Mina went to within five meters of them and let out her best imitation of a loud wolf howl. The combatants stopped and looked in her direction. Unable to see anything, the werewolf sniffed the air. Mina backed away and to the left, in the direction of the forbidden forest, and let out another howl. Whether curious or having smelled human flesh on her which werewolves prefer to dog meat, it began to lumber towards her.

Seeing that her ruse was working Mina began to run towards the forbidden forest. The werewolf bounded after the sound of her footsteps, leaving behind its other would be victims./

Sirius was in terrible condition when Harry reached him. He had been weak from twelve years pf prison and malnutrition and was on the verge of fainting from the injuries he sustained fighting Lupin.

He was looking past Harry out over the lake. "No…no."

Harry turned and the sight made his heart fall. A swarm of dementors, at least as big as the one that had ruined the Quidditch match between Gryffindor, was bearing down on them.

"Expecto patronum!" Harry yelled as Hermione arrived, using his great glowing cloud as a shield. One dementor came close and was forced away, though the patronus shrunk and grew dimmer at its touch. Each dementor that tried and failed to pass the patronus weakened it until the sixth dementor destroyed the patronus completely. The dementors began circling them, and Harry felt the incredible cold of their presence, his mother's voice beginning to reverberate in his head.

"Hermione, help me!" He cast another patronus, weaker then the first, which withstood four dementors before collapsing.

"Expec-expec-expecto patronum!" Hermione produced a small wisp of silver smoke from her wand. It was completely useless.

A dementor flew over where Sirius lay, it's head above his. Harry pointed his wand straight at it.

"Expecto patromun!" The patronus forced the dementor off of Sirius, fading from existence as it did so. Harry collapsed to his knees, feeling as if he had no strength left for another patronus. The cries of "Not Harry!" began to take over.

Sirius rolled over to face him. His eyes were glazed over and he was barely conscious, but he was smiling.

"You're…always there…to bail me out…James."

Harry shook his head violently, regaining his composure. He saw Hermione, already collapsed, to his left.

The thought of his father and his bravery was like having cold water splashed on his face. Harry knew, _knew, _that he could not let his father down. He could not let his father's best friend suffer the dementor's kiss.

"EXPECTO PATRONUM!"

This time it was not a cloud that emerged that emerged from Harry's wand. It was an animal, a large, horned animal. It galloped around Harry, Hermione, and Sirius, it's silver glow more bright than any of the clouds had been, chasing the dementors, who could no longer fight a true patronus, away. They flew into the forbidden forest.

The patronus came up to Harry, who dimly recognized it as a stag, the creature Lupin had said that his father transformed into. Keeping this patronus around was costing Harry all the energy he had left. He watched the stag fade as he himself faded into unconsciousness./

Mina could not outrun a werewolf, so it was fortunate for her that the beast was cautious about what it could not see and merely kept pace with her until she reached the forest.

Once inside Mina finally threw off the invisibility cloak. The werewolf growled at her, saliva dripping from its mouth at the prospect of the meal Mina would make.

Mina was already transformed, her wand and crescent compact at the ready, but she did not want to kill or seriously injure Professor Lupin.

"Professor?"

The werewolf roared and swung a massive arm at her. She ducked under it and backed away. The creature continued to swipe at her and she continued to dodge.

Then it lunged at her, attempting to bite her neck. She leapt over it just in time and pulled herself atop a large branch.

The werewolf leapt at her, it's claws sinking into the branch. She jumped up to a higher branch. The force of her leap, combined with the weight of the werewolf, caused the first branch to break and fall to the ground along with the werewolf.

The werewolf got up and began to climb the tree with it's claws. "You just don't give up!" Mina whined.

She sung herself under the branch and let go, hurting herself at the werewolf feet first. Her kick collided with the top of the werewolf's head with a loud thud, and she she landed on one knee on the ground.

She turned to the werewolf, already knowing that it was out cold.

"Honey, what did you do in school this year? Oh, not much, Mom, just beat up a werewolf."

A light caught her attention out of the corner of her eye. It had come from the lake. She looked at it with interest, but only when she began to feel the familiar chill did she realize it's source.

"Oh…no."

She couldn't see the dementors coming through the trees until they were already in the forest, seeking the nearest person after failing at the lake. Even then she could not tell how many there were.

"Crescent beam!" The energy attack tore through the nearest dementor, leaving onlya small cloud of black smoke behind. Mina continued to fire off more crescent beams, destroying a further ten dementors, but she was being overwhelmed through sheer numbers.

A scream sounded in her head, one she knew was from the evil woman, Beryl.

She opened her compact and the great light emitted from it in all directions, driving the dementors away. But it faded to nothingness in under fifteen seconds.

"No! Not now, dammit!"

But it was no use. It had been a full month since she had charged the compact under the full moon., and she had used up much of its energy during the training sessions with Artemis. Even though that night there was a full moon, the light from the moon was useless beneath the trees of the forbidden forest.

The dementors regrouped and came at her again. She put away the compact and began defending herself with her finger and her wand, variously crying out "Crescent Beam!" and "Expecto Patronum!"

The crescent beam continued to destroy the dementors one at a time and her patronus, strengthened by her transformation, was moderately effective as a shield, but neither could long protect her from the amount of dementors attacking her.

"_I curse you."_

Her second patronus faded after the third dementor approached it.

"_You shall no naught but strife all your days. There is no peace for you."_

Her fifth patronus didn't stop a single dementor.

"_Your love is forever doomed to fail."_

'Harry!'

"Expecto Patronum!"

A large, silver bird erupted out of her wand. It's wings trailed silver fire as it flew through the dementors, chasing them away.

'A phoenix.' Mina thought. It was appropriate for a warrior reincarnated.

Finally safe, Mina sat down on the ground when it evaporated, her legs too weak to support her anymore. Her breathing was heavy and she was absolutely exhausted.

"D'you think I can ask Artemis for a raise?" she asked the unconscious werewolf./

_Since this was the action payoff of this particular story I'd like more reviews about it. Was it satisfying? If not, why? There are still many things to be resolved, just no longer with fists._


	16. Something Wicked This Way Comes

Harry, Ron, and Hermione awoke in the hospital wing, where Dumbledore, Minister Fudge, and Professor Snape were discussing the capture of Black. Snape had brought them all up to the castle after the action had ended, claiming that he had saved them from Black. Fudge was talking about giving him an Order of Merlin award.

"Will Black be sent back to Azkaban, minister?"

"No, no. He's proven to be too dangerous. We'll perform the kiss tonight, before he gets another chance to escape."

"If the headmaster permits it."

"In this case, Severus, my personal feelings about the dementors do not matter much. Even if his story about Pettigrew is true, there is nothing I can do to prevent Black from undergoing the dementor's curse."

"What!"

Harry had shouted, waking up Ron and Hermione.

"You can't!"

"What?"

"He's innocent! You can't give him to the dementors!"

"Potter.." Snape growled.

"He right! My rat, actually, he's not a rat-"

"Pettigrew's alive! We saw him!"

"He faked his own death!"

"You see, minister?" Snape asked. "Confunded, all of them."

"Yes, but they've had a rough night. We should leave so as to not disturb them."

"Very well. I want to see when it happens."

"Are you coming, Dumbledore?"

"I'll be along soon. I still wish to talk to my students."

"You don't think that Black may be telling the truth, headmaster!"

"I just wish to speak with them, Severus."

"Remember that Black proved himself capable of murder at the age of sixteen. Remember how he tried to kill me, headmaster."

Snape closed the door as he left, leaving Dumbledore alone with Harry, Ron, and Hermione.

"Professor!"

"_You've _got to believe us!"

Dumbledore put up his hand. "That's enough. It just so happens that I _do _believe you. But you must understand that I do not have the power to overrule the ministry. And without Pettigrew, dead or alive, Professor Snape's version of events is far more compelling than yours."

"Then what-"

"Wait a minute, Harry. It appears that someone is listening in on our conversation." He turned to the door to the hospital wing. In the silence they could hear scratching against the door.

Dumbledore opened the door and looked outside, right and left. There was no one there. He was about to close it when he felt something cross over his foot.

A white cat had entered the room. It had a crescent shaped bald spot on it's forehead. In it's mouth was a squirming rat.

"Scabbers!" Ron yelled.

"So this is the rat that Peter Pettigrew has hidden as all these years?" Dumbledore asked. "Is that…" he began, looking at the cat, but seemed to think better of it.

The cat dropped Scabbers at Dumbledore's feet. The rat attempted to flee, but Dumble waved his wand at it, and the next instant it was Pettigrew crawling across the floor.

"Fascinating." Dumbledore said as he grabbed Pettigrew by the collar. "I wonder how I am going to explain my capture of Pettigrew to the minister?" He smiled as he left with Pettigrew.

The cat meowed happily and scurried from the room, leaving Harry, Ron, and Hermione startled, relieved, and more than a little confused.

"First Crookshanks," Ron said. "Now this. What's with the cats in this place? Is it something in the water?"/

Mina sat for hours next to the unconscious Professor Lupin, thinking.

_You shall know naught but strife all your days. _

At one point the werewolf had looked like it was stirring, so she hit it over the head with a rock. Until she knew that the others were safe she couldn't chance it waking up.

_There is no peace for you._

She fiddled with the crescent compact in her hands. Her powers as a soldier, the very things that she had counted on to make up for her shortcomings as a witch, had failed her when she had needed them. It was her magic that had saved her.

_All your days._

Artemis found her early in the morning, having followed her scent.

"What's going on?"

"Everyone's safe. They're in the castle. Pettigrew is captured and Black is going to be released."

"Good." She got up, rather unsteadily, and picked up the invisibility cloak to go back to the castle under.

"Wait a bit before giving the cloak back." Artemis said, noticing how out of it she was. Go to the dorms and get some sleep."

"No. I want to go to the room of requirement."

_Forever._

"Mina, you need sleep. As it is you can barely stand. Whatever it is you think you need it can wait six hours."

"Fine."

"Were there any problems other than the werewolf?"

"Dementors."

There was a pause.

"And?"

"I drove them off with the patronus."

"Good."

_Doomed._

"You're sure Harry is all right?"

"I'm sure, Mina. It's all over."

_You shall know naught but strife._/

Mina was awakened by Artemis licking her face.

"Need more sleep." she muttered.

"Take any more and you'll miss breakfast. After last night you need to eat too."

"All right."

_No peace._

Fifteen minutes later Mina left the Hufflepuff common room. She quickly made a turn towards the seventh floor.

"To the great hall, Mina. Food comes before the room of requirement."

"It'll probably just make some food for me."

"You can't know that. Go to the great hall, now."

After eating breakfast, which she had to admit made her feel much better, Mina finally made her way to the room of requirement.

On the way she was stopped by Professor Lupin, who looked shabbier than ever and held an ice pack over his head.

"Please come into my office, Miss Aino."

"Oh, Professor, I-"

"There is no need to be alarmed. Just come into my office."

She say down near his desk as he closed the door. Lupin sat down too and took the ice pack off of his head, revealing a large red bump.

"I believe I have you to thank for this, Miss Aino."

The color faded from Mina's face.

Lupin laughed. "And I _do_ thank you. As I understand it you saved half a dozen people from me last night."

"How do you-"

"I remember what happens when I transform, even if the memories are a little fuzzy, no pun intended. I might not have realized it was you, though, if I hadn't already known that you were on the grounds last night.

"So the hippogriff is safe, you're original intention, Sirius Black is a free man, and the real death eater is off to Azkaban."

"Death eater?"

"The term for the servants of Voldemort. Tell me, who used the patronus, you or Harry?"

"I don't really know, sir. I did, but I think Harry did too."

"And what was you're patronus?"

"A phoenix."

Lupin's smile couldn't have widened any more. "I'll regret no longer being your instructor, but if you can fight werewolves and dementors you no longer need to be taught by me."

"What do you mean?"

"I quit. I can't chance what happened last night happening again."

"But you can't!"

"I have to. But I want you to know, you did a lot of good last night, and made a big difference."

"Thank you sir."

"Now why don't you give me the invisibility cloak? I know you took it. That's why none of us could see you."

"Oh." Mina took the cloak out of the pocket in her robes she had stuffed it into, intending to give it to Harry when she saw him.

"I'll tell Harry I found it on the grounds before I came back to the castle."

"Thank you, sir."/

"Are you sure that that was Mina's cat, Hermione?" Harry asked, still in the hospital wing.

"No, but I think it is. It's weird, isn't it?"

"Well Crookshanks was after Scabbers too." Ron said. "These cats might have a mind of their own."

"Maybe."

Harry was curious, but preoccupied by something else. His godfather was free, with Fudge taking credit for the discovery of the true criminal and personally pardoning Sirius. Harry would be leaving the Durselys forever to move in with Sirius.

His feelings would only be described as euphoric, except for one nagging point.

Professor Twelawney had fallen into a trance the previous day while testing him and declared that the servant of the dark lord would escape and set out to rejoin his master and that the dark lord would rise again. He had asked Dumbledore about it, and the headmaster thought that it was a true prophecy.

"Not to worry." Dumbledore had said when Harry pointed out when Harry had pointed out that it had not come true. Pettigrew did not escape and Sirius was never working for Voldmort. "Not all prophecies come true, although we can't rule out the possibility that the servant is someone else entirely."

"Do you think it was?"

"I would venture a guess that Pettigrew _was _what it meant, but unfortunately for Peter, there may be forces stronger than fate."

Harry was not sure that he would ever understand Dumbledore's words./

"Lupin's right, Mina. You made a huge difference."

"You're the one who caught Pettigrew."

"Because I listened to you. You saved everyone from the werewolf and thanks to you a servant of Voldemort is going to jail."

_You shall no naught but strife all your days. There is no peace for you._

"Artemis, this death eater, he was hiding _in_ Harry's room. At any point he could have killed him if he heard anything about his lot getting strong again."

"You're point is?"

"He can't be the only one. If someone so pathetic can hide so dangerously close to Harry and Dumbledore all this time many others must have done the same."

"I see what you mean."

"That's why Voldemort is so feared. It's not that he's so powerful, it's that he could strike anytime, anywhere."

"I guess."

_No peace._

"And Beryl. She's the same, isn't she?"

"Yes."

_Something Wicked this way comes_

Mina looked around the room of requirement. It was empty. She had already transformed and had her wand in hand.

"Expecto patronum!"

The bright silver cloud erupted from her wand.

"I thought you said that your patronus was a phoenix."

"Watch." Minatransformed back to normal.

She thought of Harry.

"Expecto patronum!"

This time the phoenix shot out of her wand, circling the room and landing on her shoulder.

Artemis smiled. "It fits you well."

"Now I know." she whispered.

"Now you know what?"

"Mina turned to leave, not answering Artemis.

Now she knew her true feelings. Now she knew that she did not just have a silly schoolgirl crush. It was much, much more than that.

"Mina?"

_Your love is forever doomed to fail./_

_That's that. The end of year 3. If you haven't read the books yet you definitely should, and yes, the time turner is part of the book as well as the movie. _

_I try not to just repeat the book word for word, though when I'm following the plot this closely it's unavoidable at times. So certain areas tend to get skinned over, I think the areas that would make the chapters longer. As it is this has been more that 60 pages. I end the chapters in places where it seems to me like a natural end, but if they aren't or if there is content you think I should include that I didn't please let me know. Criticism is fine._

_This story may be over, but stay tuned for the sequel! Year 4! Just because Wormtail is in Azkaban and never returned to Voldemort doesn't mean Hogwarts will be safe during the Triwizard Tournament!_


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